REMINISCENCES  OF 
A  LITERARY  LIFE 


CHARLES  MACFARLANE 


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REMINISCENCES  OF  A  LITERARY  LIFE 


REMINISCENCES  OF 
A    LITERARY    LIFE 

By    CHARLES    MacFARLANE 

1799-1858 

AUTHOR    AND   TRAVELLER 

WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION    BY 

JOHN     F.     TATTERSALL 


NEW    YORK 
CHARLES     SCRIBNER'S     SONS 

1917 


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Printed  in  Great  Britain 


TO 

MY  NEPHEW 
JOHN    TATTERSALL 

IN    NEW  ZEALAND 


442277 


INTRODUCTION 

In  the  spring  of  this  year  I  noticed  in  the  catalogue 
of  Mr.  Frank  Woore,  antiquarian  bookseller,  of  St. 
Peter's  Street,  Derby,  two  quarto  manuscript  volumes 
containing  the  reminiscences  of  Charles  MacFarlane. 
The  name  of  the  writer  was  not  known  to  me;  but 
as  the  manuscript  made  mention  of  the  names  of 
Shelley,  Keats,  and  Hartley  Coleridge,  with  those  of 
others  who  will  not  soon  be  forgotten,  I  obtained,  by 
the  kindness  of  Mr.  Woore,  a  sight  of  the  two  volumes, 
and  found  their  contents  even  more  interesting  than 
I  had  anticipated.  Mr.  Woore  informed  me  that  he 
had  bought  them  at  a  country  sale,  among  a  number 
of  old  ledgers  and  account  books,  and  that  they 
would  probably  have  been  sold  as  waste  paper  and 
destroyed  had  he  not  noticed  the  interesting  char- 
acter of  the  contents. 

My  task  has  been  to  arrange  them,  and  to  correct, 
to  the  best  of  my  power,  the  errors  of  the  amanuenses 
employed  by  the  author,  where  their  work  had  not 
had  the  benefit  of  his  revision. 

I  have  omitted  only  a  few  entries  of  minor  interest, 
and  a  few  allusions  to  families  which  still  have  living 
represeatatives,  when  I  considered  that  MacFarlane 's 
outspoken  remarks  might  possibly  give  them  pain. 
I  will  now  give  such  few  particulars  of  MacFarlane 's 
life  as  I  have  been  able  to  gather,  referring  the  reader 
to  the  "  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  "  for 
further  information. 

Charles  MacFarlane,  author  and  traveller,  was 
born  on  the  i8th  December,  1799,  and  died  a  "  Poor 

vii 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

Brother  of  the  Charterhouse  "  on  the  9th  December, 
1858,  after  eighteen  months'  residence. 

On  a  printed  leaflet  prefixed  to  his  anecdotes,  dated 
*'  Charterhouse,  August,  1857,"  he  records  thirty- 
books  written  and  published  by  him  between  the  years 
1820  and  1857,  besides  a  large  number  of  articles 
contributed  to  magazines  (c/.  Appendix). 

Between  1844  and  1846  he  wrote  three  novels  or 
"  Historical  Tales,"  the  best  of  which,  "  The  Camp 
of  Refuge,  or  the  Last  of  the  Saxons,"  found  con- 
siderable favour,  and  ma}^  have  given  Kingsley  the 
idea  for  his  well-known  novel,  "  Hereward  the 
Wake." 

MacFarlane  arrived  in  Italy  in  January,  1816,  and 
lived  at  Naples  till  the  year  1827,  when  he  visited 
Sicily,  Malta,  Greece,  and  Turkey,  the  result  being 
his  ''  Constantinople  in  1828,"  published  in  1829. 
In  the  spring  of  that  year  he  arrived  in  London. 
The  autumn  and  winter  of  the  same  year  he  spent 
at  Brighton,  with  the  object  of  restoring  his  health, 
which  had  suffered  from  malarial  fever,  contracted 
during  his  travels .  At  Brighton  he  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  his  life-long  friend,  Wilham  Stewart  Rose, 
**  a  man  to  my  heart  of  hearts,"  of  whom,  and  of  his 
friend  the  Rev.  Charles  Townsend,  he  gives  such  an 
engaging  description. 

Soon  after  this  he  must  have  married,  for  his  eldest 
son  Charles  was  born  at  Edinburgh  on  the  4th  July, 
1832.  He  lived  at  Friern  Barnet  from  1832  to  1846, 
when  he  again  visited  Italy  and  Turkey  with  his 
eldest  son,  the  result  being  two  books,  "  A  Glance 
at  Revolutionized  Italy  in  1848,"  and  "  Turkey  and 
its  Destiny"  (2  vols.,  1850). 

On  his  return  to  England  he  settled  at  Burgate, 
Canterbury,  till  his  admission  to  the  Charterhouse, 
on  the  nomination  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
in  June,  1857.  Towards  the  end  of  his  life,  MacFarlane 
seems  to  have  fallen  on  evil  times.  His  health  gave 
way,  and  the  satisfactory  income  which  he  had  derived 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

from  literature  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  began  to  fall 
off,  largely,  according  to  his  own  account,  from  the 
fault  of  his  publisher. 

It  may  have  been  about  this  time,  as  recorded  in 
his  reminiscences,  that  he  made  an  application  to  the 
Foreign  Office  for  a  consulship  abroad.  He  writes: 
"  I  had  been  making  application  for  a  consular 
appointment  in  Italy  or  somewhere  else  in  the 
Mediterranean,  and  was  feeling  a  pang  in  sickness  of 

*  hope  deferred,'  when   Lord  suggested   to  me 

that  I  should  have  a  better  chance  for  some  appoint- 
ment in  the  Colonies  or  in  the  Colonial  Office,  as  that 
was  much  more  promising  than  the  Foreign  Office. 
I  wrote  instantly  to  Rose,  who  took  a  warm  interest 
for  me,  and  who  had  still  some  little  (and  little  it 
was)  political  or  parliamentary  or  ministerial  interest. 

In   reply  he   said :    '  Lord   is  quite  right :  the 

Colonial  Department  is  very  promising;  it  promised 
me  a  berth  for  a  young  friend  ten  years  ago,  and  it 
keeps  promising  still.'  " 

I  am  indebted  to  the  Re^^.  Gerald  S.  Davies, 
Master  of  the  Charterhouse,  for  the  information 
that  MacFarlane,  at  the  time  of  his  admission, 
had  five  children  living :  two  sons,  Charles  and 
Victor,  and  three  daughters,  Arabella,  Blanche,  and 
Marion. 

Charles  entered  the  East  Indian  Army  in  1851, 
nominated  to  a  cadetship  by  Sir  James  W.  Hogg, 
M.P.,  at  the  recommendation  of  the  Countess  of 
Jersey.  He  had  a  distinguished  career,  serving  in  the 
Burmese  War  of  1852-53,  and  during  the  Mutinies  of 
1857-58.  He  was  present  at  the  final  assault  and 
capture  of  Delhi,  and  commanded  his  regiment 
(ist  European  Regiment)  after  Colonel  Gerrard  had 
been  mortally  w^ounded.  He  was  also  present  at  the 
final  siege  and  capture  of  Lucknow,  under  Lord 
Clyde,  in  March,  1858.  He  obtained  his  captaincy 
in  January,  1863,  and  became  Major  in  January, 
1 871,     He  obtained  two  years'  leave  to  Europe  in 


X  INTRODUCTION 

December,  1871,  and  died  on  the  2nd  March, 
1872. 

His  younger  brother  Victor  was  born  in  1 838,  and  at 
the  age  of  eighteen  he  enhsted  in  London  as  a  private 
in  the  East  India  Company's  2nd  Bengal  Regiment. 
He  served  in  the  siege  and  capture  of  Delhi,  where 
he  was  wounded  in  the  thigh.  He  was  afterwards 
promoted  to  the  rank  of  sergeant,  and  died  on  the 
5th  June,  1859,  thus  surviving  his  father  only  six 
months. 

J.  R.  Planche,  who  died  in  1880,  described  MacFar- 
lane  as  *'  a  most  amusing  companion  and  a  warm 
friend,"  and  I  think  that  those  who  peruse  this  book 
will  not  be  inclined  to  dispute  his  judgment.  We 
learn  from  his  Memoirs  that  he  w^as  a  little  man,  proud 
of  his  Highland  descent,  a  sturdy  Conservative, 
Churchman,  and  Anti-Repubhcan.  Living,  as  he 
did,  during  his  "  hot  youth  "  in  Naples,  where  he 
seems  to  have  experienced  much  kindness  and 
cordiality  in  Court  circles,  he  was  blinded  to  the 
defects  of  the  Bourbon  rule,  and  he  did  not  believe 
that  the  Revolutionists  had  men  able  enough  to 
overturn  it  and  to  erect  on  its  ruins  a  stabler  and 
better  form  of  government . 

The  happiest  years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  Italy. 
He  wTites  in  his  entertaining  book,  *'  The  Lives  and 
Exploits  of  Banditti  and  Robbers  in  all  Parts  of  the 
World  "  (ist  edition,  1831),  in  one  chapter  of  which 
he  describes  his  own  capture  by  brigands  when 
travelling  with  his  friend  the  Prince  of  Ischitella. 
"  And  now  good-night  to  Italian  brigands,  and  once 
more  farewell  to  Italy  ! — a  country  where  my 
brightest  days  have  been  passed,  for  I  can  never 
hope  to  retrace  the  pleasant  period  of  life  between 
seventeen  years  and  twenty-seven  ;  a  country  for 
which  I  may  assert  a  heart-warm  admiration;  knowing 
it  and  living  in  it  so  long  as  I  have  done,  without, 
I  trust,  incurring  the  suspicion  of  sentimentalism  or 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

affectation  ;  a  country  where  I  have  had,  and  am 
confident  still  have,  some  of  my  best  friends,  and 
where,  next  to  my  native  land,  I  should  prefer  to 
end  my  life,  and  find,  with 

"  '  Un  sasso 
Che  disttngua  le  ynie  dalle  infinite 
Ossa  che  in  terra  e  in  mar  semina  morte,' 

a  quiet  and  a  humble  grave." 

I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any  portrait  of  MacFar- 
lane.  Is  it  possible  that  the  "  handsome  sort  of 
album,"  in  which  his  friend  Brockedon  the  artist  had 
drawn  his  ''  effigies,"  is  still  in  existence  ? 

Many  of  those  who  peruse  the  following  pages  will 
no  doubt  first  turn  to  what  MacFarlane  writes  of 
Shelley,  Keats,  and  Hartley  Coleridge. 

What  a  life-like  sketch  he  draws  of  the  wayward 
and  lovable  Hartley,  as  he  walked  on  that  fine  day 
of  late  autumn  from  Grasmere  to  Bowness,  kicking 
before  him  the  drifts  of  sere  fallen  leaves  which  im- 
peded his  progress,  and  stopping  now  and  then  to 
stamp  his  little  feet  when  he  wished  to  emphasize 
some  point  in  the  flow  of  his  discourse !  My  aim 
is,  however,  only  to  introduce  to  readers  an  author 
who,  I  fear,  is  now  almost  forgotten,  though  most 
of  his  works  are  still  worthy  of  perusal.  Should 
those  who  dip  into  these  desultory  pages  find  in  them 
some  distraction  from  sad  thoughts  in  these  stern 
times,  some  solace  for  a  few  hours  in  these  memories 
of  years  which  now  seem  so  far  away,  my  task  in 
preparing  them  for  publication  will  not  have  been 

undertaken  in  vain. 

J.  F.  TATTERSALL. 

BiSHOPSTONE, 

December,  igi6. 


PREFACE 

At  fifty-seven,  the  heartiest  of  us  is  no  longer  young. 
It  is  time  to  think  of  the  past  and  prepare  tor  the 
great  future.  I  am  in  my  fifty-seventh  year,  and  in 
no  good  case  in  mind,  body,  or  estate.  My  anxieties 
are  numerous;  I  have  had  two  of  the  "  Three  Warn- 
ings," being  lame  and  purblind,  such  property  as  I 
ever  had  is  departed  from  me,  and  literature  no  longer 
affords  me  the  ample  income  I  derived  from  it  during 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century ;  yet  all  is  not  gloom  : 
my  memory  is  unimpaired,  my  spirit  often  buoyant: 

"  //  COY  mi  senio  in  sen'  vcgeto  e  fresco, 
Ed  in  vecchi  anni  giovenil  pensiev." 

Now,  I  have  thought  that,  while  this  memory  lasts, 
I  might,  at  least,  amuse  m}^  solitude  by  jotting  down 
some  of  my  reminiscences.  I  have  been,  to  a  con- 
siderable extent,  a  traveller  and  sojourner  in  foreign 
countries,  and  it  has  been  my  fortune,  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  to  be  thrown  among  very  many  remark- 
able persons,  of  some  of  whom  the  world  still  talks 
and  writes,  and  will  continue  to  talk  and  write.  1 
will  say  my  say  of  these,  and  give  some  of  their  say- 
ings and  doings.  I  have  never  Boswellized ;  I  have 
never  thought  it  fair  to  go  from  a  man's  table  straight 
to  one's  diary,  and  before  his  dinner  be  digested  or  the 
flavour  of  his  claret  passed  away,  to  sit  down  and  en- 
register  all  that  he  has  been  saying  in  the  confidence 
or  carelessness  of  conviviality.  But  though  I  took 
no  "  notes,"  1  pondered  over  and  treasured  what  I 
heard — as  also  what  I  saw — and  as  my  memory  has 

xiii 


XIV 


PREFACE 


been  very  retentive,  I  think  that  I  may  report  wth 
tolerable  accuracy.* 

I  cannot  promise  to  myself  that  in  these  souvenirs 
I  shall  be  always  and  invariably  eulogistic.  I  have 
known  something  as  well  of  the  bad  as  of  the  good 
side  of  human  nature ;  and  that  which  I  have  by  far 
most  frequently  encountered  has  been  the  mixture 
of  the  good  and  bad,  or  that  vertu  mediocre  which 
makes  no  impression  and  leaves  iio  remembrances. 

De  moYtnis  nil  nisi  bonum  is  a  benevolent-lookmg 
maxim,  but  it  will  not  do  in  practice;  it  would  be  the 
death  of  history,  of  biography,  of  anecdote.  1  be- 
lieve, however,  that  my  tastes,  habits  of  thought,  and 
natural  disposition,  will  lead  me  to  dwell  much  longer 
on  the  good  than  on  the  bad,  and  to  deal  much  more 
in  praise  than  in  censure.  "  As  for  mediocrities, 
"  Non  ragianam  di  lor,  ma  giiarda  e  passa." 

I  have  no  intention  of  making  any  present  use  of 
these  memorabilia ;  but  they-or  at  least  e^me  of 
them— mav  be  published  hereafter;  and,  if  they  are 
not,  the  books  which  contain  them  may  interest  my 
children,  and  recall  to  their  memory  the  valuable 
friendships  I  have  enjoyed,  and  the  numerous  ac- 
quaintances I  have  had  from  my  boyhood  upwards. 
By  one,  for  a  certainty,  this  will  be  prized  as  an  heir- 
loom ;  I  mean,  by  my  eldest  son  Charles,  who  has-been 
separated   from   me  these  last   five  years   and  six 
months,  who  has  been  campaigning  in  Burma,  who 
is  now  at  Cawnpore  in  the  Oude  frontier,  but  who, 
before  going  to  India,  travelled  with  me  m  Asiatic 
and   European  Turkey,   Italy,  Savoy,  Switzerland 
Alsace,  down  the  Rhine  and  through  Belgium,  and 
who  always  deUghted  to  hear  my  stories  of  past  times 
and  anecdotes  of  eafly  friends,  with  not  a  few  of 
whom  he  became  personally  acquainted,  as  we— at 

*  Ttas  far  in  MacFarlane's  distinct  but  tremulous  tondwritif^ 
what  Mlows  is  written  by  several  amanuenses,  except  on  a  few 
pages  which  will  be  indicated. 


PREFACE 


XV 


a  very  slow  pace  and  with  many  a  halt— were  journey- 
ing homeward  from  Constantinople. 

To  Charles— should  God  only  grant  him  life  and 
health— these  notes  will  be  very  dear;  and  to  him, 
by  anticipation,  I  inscribe  them. 

Possibly  the  books  will  include  descriptions  of 
scenes  and  places  as  well  as  of  persons,  personal 
adventures,  and  some  recollections  derived  from  my 
varied  reading.  I  have  written  a  great  deal,  but  I 
have  never  yet  gone  through  a  work  and  brought 
It  to  its  close  in  strict  conformity  with  my  original 
plan,  or  in  precisely  the  manner  I  contemplated  when 
beginning  it.  I  suspect  that  no  author  has  ever  done 
this  au  pied  de  la  lettre.  I  shall  attempt  no  order, 
no  chronological  or  other  systematic  arrangement, 
but  shall  dictate  my  anecdotes  as  they  occur  to  my 
memory . 

Cantrrbury,  1855. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION  -  -  .  .  _ 

PREFACE         --.--. 

CHAPTkR 

I.    PERCY  BYSSHK  SHELLEY  .  -  .  . 

II.    JOHN  KEATS — THOMAS   CAMPBELL       -  .  . 

III.  GEORGE  DOUGLAS — SIR   WALTER  SCOTT 

IV.  WILLIAM  STEWART  ROSE  -  .  .  . 
V.    SAMUEL  ROGERS — SAMUEL  TAYLOR  COLERIDGE 

VI.  HARTLEY  COLERIDGE  -  .  .  . 

VII.  THOMAS  MOORE — WILLIAM  LISLE  BOWLES 

VIII.  THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY— JAMES  T.  MATHIAS       - 

IX.  HARRIET  MARTINEAU — WILLIAM  GODWIN 

X.  LEIGH  HUNT — THOMAS  HOOD — HORACE  SMITH 

XI.    SIR       JAMES       MACKINTOSH  —  MRS.       JAMESON  —  THE 
MISSES  PORTER     -  -  -  .  . 

XII.    TOM  GENT     -.--.. 

XIII.  VISCOUNT  DILLON — SIR  LUMLEY  ST.  GEORGE  SKEF- 
FINGTON,  BART.— THE  RIGHT  HON.  JOHN  HOOKHAM 
FRERE       ...--. 

XrV.    LORD  DUDLEY  AND  WARD — LORD   DOVER 

XV.    SIR  THOMAS  LAWRENCE,  P.R.A. — WILLIAM  BROCKEDON 
— JAMES  NORTHCOTE,   R.A. 

XVI.    SIR   ROBERT  PEEL — THE  HON.    SPENCER  PERCEVAL 

XVII.    THE      HON.       MOUNTSTUART      ELPHINSTONE  —  JUDGE 
DAVIS         ------ 

XVIII.    ELIJAH   BARWELL  IMPEY  -  -  -  - 

XIX.  ALEXANDER  I.  OF  RUSSIA  —  GEORGE  CANNING  — 
NAPOLEON — QUEEN  HORTENSE — ROSSINI     - 

xvii 


PACK 

vii 

xiii 


I 

22 
29 

45 
52 
67 

78 

93 

102 

109 
117 

126 

137 

146 
155 

162 
176 

185 


xviii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAOS 

XX.   COUNT  PECCHIO — GUISBPPB  MAZZINI — COUNT  NIEM- 

CEWITZ                  ,                 .                 -                 -                 -  190 

XXI.    CARDINAL  RUFFO                      -                  -                  -                  -  206 

XXII.    CAROLINE,   PRINCESS    OF   WALES — LA    BARONNE  DE 

FEUCHiRES        -                  -                  -                 -                 -  214 

XXIII.  SIR  SIDNEY  SMITH                  -                  -                  -                  -  221 

XXIV.  SIR  GEORGE  MURRAY            -                  -                 -                 -  232 
XXV.    FIELD-MARSHAL  VISCOUNT  HARDINQE            -                  •  238 

XXVI.    REV.  CHARLES  TOWNSBND                    -                  -                  -  257 

XXVII.    BEAU  BRUMMELL  -----  266 

XXVIII.   AN  ENGUSH  MERCHANT — THE  BRUNELS,  ENGINEERS  277 

APPENDIX                  .                 -                  .                 -                  .  294 


'•  »     »   I  » 


REMINISCENCES 
OF    A    LITERARY    LIFE 

CHAPTER  I 

PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY 

It  was  some  thirty-seven  years  ago,  at  Naples,  and 
in  the  matchless  Royal  Bourbon  Museum,  near  the 
end  of  those  sculpture  galleries  which  occupy  the 
whole  of  the  ground  floor  of  that  spacious  edifice, 
or  the  whole  of  it  which  lies  to  the  left  of  the  main 
entrance.  I  was  standing  and  admiring,  perhaps 
for  the  hundredth  time,  that  exquisite  antique  statue 
of  a  Roman  matron  seated  on  a  low-back  chair 
which,  without  any  sufficient  reason,  is  called  Agrip- 
pina,  the  mother  of  Nero. 

I  know  not  how  long  I  had  been  there,  when  I  was 
startled  by  an  English  voice  close  at  my  ear,  and 
on  turning  my  head  I  saw  an  unmistakable  and 
most  interesting-looking  English  gentleman,  in  ap- 
pearance not  more  than  five  or  six  and  twenty. 
There  was  not  much  in  the  remark  he  had  uttered, 
as  if  unconsciously;  it  referred  to  the  gracefulness 
of  the  statue;  it  was  little  more  than  a  truism  or 
commonplace,  but  of  that  sort  of  commonplace 
which  is  not  heard  from  the  vulgar;  and  the  tone 
of  voice  with  which  it  was  delivered  struck  me  as 
peculiarly  soft  and  touching.  The  speaker  was  very 
evidently  in  delicate  health;  he  was  very  thin,  and 
would  have  been  very  pale  but  for  a  little  flush  at 


2  SHELLEY  [chap,  i 

the  upper  edge  of  the  cheek;  his  e^^e  was  rather 
sunken  or  hollow,  but  at  the  same  time  uncommonly 
quick,  brilliant,  and  glancing;  his  hair  was  long  and 
wavy,  curling  naturally ;  the  expression  of  the  coun- 
tenance melancholy,  but  a  melancholy  frequently 
irradiated  with  liveliness  and  even  with  joyfulness. 
Though  negligently,  he  was  neatly  if  not  elegantly 
dressed.  He  never  could  have  been  taken  for  an}'- 
thing  but  a  true  thoroughbred  English  gentleman, 
though  there  were  personal  peculiarities  about  him. 
We  fell  into  talk,  just  as  if  we  had  been  old  ac- 
quaintances. 

I  told  him  that  the  Bonaparte  famil^^  always  chose 
to  consider  the  sitting  Roman  matron  as  the  very 
image  of  Madame  ]\Iere;  and  that  when  old  Lsetitia 
was  here,  her  daughter  Caroline,  wife  to  Murat,  and 
then  Queen  of  Naples,  made  her  sit  b}^  the  side  of 
the  marble  and  made  a  large  party  remark  the 
striking  resemblance.  I  added  that,  though  I  had 
never  seen  this  close  juxtaposition,  I  thought  from 
what  I  had  seen  of  her  at  Rome  that  the  mother 
of  Napoleon  did  realh^  resemble  the  reputed  marble 
mother  of  Nero,  and  that  her  attitudes  and  her 
habitual  pose  were  very  like  those  of  the  statue. 

My  unknown  friend  had  not  seen  Madame  Mere; 
but  he  said  he  would  think  of  the  statue  if  he  should 
chance  to  see  her  on  his  way  back  through  Rome. 
We  returned  together  through  the  galleries,  and  as 
we  did  so,  with  frequent  halts  to  look  at  this  work 
of  ancient  art  or  that,  I  could  not  help  discovering 
that  I  was  in  the  society  of  a  rarely-gifted,  original- 
minded,  imaginative  man — a  poet,  though  he  should 
never  have  penned  a  verse.  We  lingered  a  consider- 
able time  at  the  pedestal  of  the  Kalipygian  Venus,  the 
most  exquisitely  formed,  coquettish,  licentious  little 
woman  that  ever  lived  in  next  to  immortal  marble. 
"  There  are  people,"  said  I,  "  who  prefer  this  glitter- 
ing little  Venus  to  the  Venus  di  Medici."  "  I  know 
it,"  said  he,  "  and  I  know  such  people;  but  they  are 


CHAP.  I]       AT  THE  NAPLES  MUSEUM  3 

wrong,  wrong,  unspiritually,  carnally,  grossly  wrong! 
This  is  all  woman;  beautiful,  if  you  will;  but  all 
woman,  and  nothing  else;  some  might  call  her  a 
strumpet  in  stone,  but  I  won't.  The  Medicean 
Venus  is  a  goddess,  and  all  over  a  goddess  I"  He 
told  me  the  stor}',  then  new  to  me,  of  the  young 
French  maiden  from  Provence,  who  went  to  Paris 
while  the  spoils  of  Italy  were  still  in  the  Louvre, 
saw  the  Belvedere  Apollo,  became  enamoured,  and 
died  of  love  of  that  quasi-divine,  but  cold,  inanimate 
marble.  In  return  I  told  him  a  story  of  quite  recent 
occurrence :  how  a  priest  from  the  provinces,  a  middle- 
aged  and  hitherto  discreet  man,  had  been  brought 
to  see  this  luscious  little  Venus;  how,  day  after  day, 
he  had  returned  to  gaze  and  gloat  upon  it ;  and  how 
he  had  terminated  his  visits  by  going  stark  mad 
about  her,  and  by  being  confined,  as  he  then  and 
long  afterwards  was,  in  the  great  lunatic  asylum  at 
A  versa.  "  I  pity  the  French  girl  much  more  than 
the  priest,"  said  my  delightful  unknown. 

Our  next  pause  was,  I  think,  before  that  simple, 
magnificent,  sublime  statue  of  Aristides,  which  I 
always  considered  one  of  the  greatest  treasures  of 
the  Neapolitan  collection.  "  I  trust,"  said  my 
chance  companion,  "  that  the  man  was  quite  as  just 
as  he  is  said  to  have  been ;  but  I  confess  I  sympathize 
with  the  Athenian  who  voted  for  his  banishment 
because  he  was  sick  and  tired  of  hearing  him  eternally 
called  '  The  Just.'  And  then,  Justice,  by  itself 
alone,  is  no  such  very  engaging  quality  !  Had  they 
called  him  '  Aristides  the  Merciful,'  or  '  Aristides  the 
Benevolent,'  as  well  as  '  Aristides  the  Just,'  I  should 
think  a  great  deal  more  of  him  !"  Gabriele  Rossetti, 
with  whom  at  that  time  I  was  well  acquainted,  came 
up,  and  alia  maniera  franca  Napolitana  entered  into 
conversation  with  my  unknown  companion  as  well 
as  with  me.  He  held  a  comfortable  little  place  in 
the  Museum,  which  he  owed  to  old  King  Ferdinand's 
morganatic  Sicilian  wife,  the  Princess  Partanna;  and 


4  SHELLEY  [chap,  i 

his  pay,  added  to  what  he  got  as  Improvisatore  and 
Maestro  di  Poesia,  enabled  him  to  eat  his  macaroni 
in  great  ease  and  comfort. 

When  the  Carbonari  and  WilHam  Pepe  made  their 
insane  Revolution  of  1820,  and  bullied  the  old  King 
into  swearing  to  the  Spanish  Constitution — not  one  of 
them  knowing  what  it  was — Don  Gabriele  was  not 
very  grateful  to  the  Princess  or  for  the  Court  patron- 
age; he  made  himself  the  Tyrtaeus  of  the  Carbonari, 
wrote  revolutionary  songs  and  a  play  to  show  how 
men  were  to  die  for  their  country  and  the  Constitu- 
tion— which  none  of  them  would  do — wrote  lampoons 
on  his  benefactress  the  Partanna,  and  then,  when 
the  Austrians  were  coming,  fled  to  an  English  ship 
and  got  to  Malta,  whence  he  transferred  himself  to 
London,  where  he  died,  not  long  since.     I  would  not 
be  over  severe  upon  him :  he  was  a  poet,  and  he  got 
his  head  turned  by  clubs  and  secret  societies.     He 
was  a  southern  Italian,  and  with  a  head  on  fire  he 
took  to  politics;  and  never  yet  did  I  know  an  Italian 
of  his  class,  whether  from  the  South  or  from  the 
North,  embark  on  the  billows  of  pohtics  without 
losing  rudder  and  compass,  and  becoming  distraught. 
Better,  a  thousand  times  better,  were  it  for  them 
to   improvise,   sing,  and  fiddle.     Like  nearly  every 
professional  Italian  litter atoy  Rossetti  was  consider- 
ably a  pedant,  and   a  dreadful  fellow  after  those 
ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  from  whom  the  French 
poet  prayed  to  be  delivered.     But  he  now  and  then 
made  a  happy  classical  allusion.    My  dear  unknown 
expressed  his  astonishment  at  the  vast  number  of 
statues,  bronzes,  vases,  and  other  works  of  Art  that 
had  been  discovered,  and  that  were  still  in  process 
of  being  discovered,  within  the  Hmits  of  the  NeapoHtan 
Kingdom. 

"  Yes,"  said  Rossetti,  "  w^e  may  say  with  Pompey 
that  we  have  but  to  strike  the  soil  with  our  foot,  and 
legions  arise  !  Tread  where  you  will,  there  is  a  world 
of  buried  yet  living  past  beneath  you."     This  was 


CHAP,  i]  GABRIELE  ROSSETTI  s 

good;  and  we  felt  it,  and  we  told  him  so.  Peggio 
followed,  for  the  poet  repeated  the  dixit  to  nearly 
every  foreigner  with  whom  he  afterwards  came  in 
contact,  and  he  always  gave  it  as  a  sudden  thought. 
With  my  own  ears  I  heard  him  parallel  Pompey  to 
Lord  Orford,  Sir  William  Gell,  Colonel  and  Mrs. 
Bonar,  Sir  William  Drummond,  Dr.  Milnes,  and  I 
should  fancy  half  a  score  more  of  "  us  Britishers." 
He  became  rather  wearisome  to  my  unknown — to 
say  nothing  of  myself — the  said  self  being  then  a 
petulant  youth,  always,  and  even  now  in  decrepitude 
and  age,  rather  intolerant  of  a  bore.  We  went 
upstairs  to  those  wondrous  rooms  which  contain  the 
exhumed  wealth  of  Herculaneum,  Pompeii,  Stabia, 
and  of  only  a  few  other  places ;  thence  we  went  into 
the  library,  still  one  of  the  best  in  Europe;  and  there, 
being  well  acquainted  with  all  the  librarians,  I  showed 
my  unknown  a  number  of  rare  books  and  some  MSS. 
which  he  was  eager  to  see.    The  head  sub-librarian, 

Canonico    ,   asked    me    who    my    friend    was. 

"  Canonico,"  said  I,  "  I  can't  tell  you,  for  I  don't 
know  even  so  much  as  his  name.  I  know  only  that  he 
is  a  man  of  taste,  a  scholar,  and  an  English  gentleman." 
"  Senza  dubbio,'^  said  the  Canonico,  with  one  of  those 
nice  layings  of  the  hand  to  the  heart,  which  only 
Italians  can  do,  come  si  deve.  The  day  was  pretty  well 
consumed ;  and  it  was  locking-up  time  at  the  Museum, 
and  so  we  left.  I  had  an  engagement,  but  was  so 
delighted  with  my  companion  that  I  believe  I  should 
have  broken  it;  but  as  we  were  walking  down  the 
street  which  leads  to  the  Toledo,  I  encountered 
Maestro  Rossini  and  Giacomo  Micheroux,  driving  in 
a  hack-carriage  for  Capo  di  Monte,  where  we  were  to 
dine,  at  Madame  F.'s.  They  hailed  me,  and  stopped 
the  fiacre.  In  parting  with  my  unknown  I  believe 
we  shook  hands,  and  I  know  that  he  thanked 
me  in  the  kindest  and  most  graceful  manner  for 
the  little  trouble  I  had  taken  for  him  in  the 
library. 


6  SHELLEY  [chap,  i 

'*  Who  is  your  friend  ?"  said  Micheroux.  I  could 
only  repeat  that  I  did  not  know.  "  Why,  I  thought 
from  your  greetings  that  you  were  brothers  or  first 
cousins.  What  a  }nattone  (madcap)  jt'ou  are  !"  said 
Rossini.  "  Your  friend  looked  very  much  like  a 
man  of  genius,"  said  Micheroux;  "  that's  a  face  one 
cannot  easily  forget."  "  I  thought  he  looked  very 
much  like  a  mezzo-mortey  un  eltco,"  said  the  Maestro. 
We  had  a  merry  dinner  up  on  the  hilltop,  as  we 
always  had  when  Rossini  was  present;  but  my 
thoughts  several  times  ran  down  the  hill  after  my 
unknown  friend. 

The  next  morning  I  met  my  unknown  at  the  end 
of  the  Toledo,  walking  with  Mr.  Roskilly,  an  English 
medical  practitioner  who  had  married  a  Sicilian  wife 
and  settled  down  in  Naples.  "  Here  he  is  to  speak 
for  himself,"  said  R.,  "  if  this  is  your  man."  My 
unknown  held  out  his  hand,  and  the  good-humoured 
practitioner  said,  ''  Mac,  I  introduce  Mr.  Percy  B. 
Shelley;  Mr.  Shelley,  this  is  Charles  MacFarlane." 
At  that  time  I  had  read  nothing  of  Shelley's  but 
his  ''  Queen  Mab,"  and  its  controversial,  crotchety, 
and  somewhat  violent  notes ;  and  I  must  confess  that 
I  thought  that  both  the  verse  and  the  prose  savoured 
of  insanity. 

But,  at  the  same  time,  from  his  talk  of  yesterday, 
I  could  have  vowed  that  there  were  better,  higher, 
and  purer  things  in  the  man  than  his  "  Mab,"  and 
that  these,  in  time,  would  well  forth  from  him,  as 
water  from  a  perennial  fountain.  Roskilly,  having 
his  patients  to  visit,  gladly  left  the  poet  with  me, 
and  we  two  presently  arranged  a  trip  to  Pompeii. 
Though  it  would  have  been  cold  wintry  weather  in 
England,  it  was  a  cheering,  glorious  day  under  the 
unclouded  sky  and  warm  sun  of  Naples.  We  hired 
one  of  those  queer  national  vehicles  called  a  calesso, 
drawn  by  two  black,  fiery  little  horses,  one  harnessed 
between  the  shafts,  and  the  other  running,  almost 
loose,  outside  the  off-shaft.     We  flew  through  the  air; 


CHAP,  i]  AT  POMPEII  7 

the  rapid  motion,  the  breeze  from  off  the  bay,  the 
populous,  busy,  cheerful  towns  and  villages  rapidly 
succeeding  each  other,  the  bright  sunshine  and  the 
varied  and  exquisite  scenery,  exhilarated  poor  Shelley 
and  brought  a  glow  to  his  cheeks,  while  I  was  in  that 
perfect  rapture  familiar  to  a  youth  of  nineteen,  in 
perfect  health,  and  with  not  a  care  in  the  world. 

We  entered  the  exhumed  city,  the  "  City  of  the 
Dead,"  as  Walter  Scott  called  it  when  he  was  first 
conducted  thither,  not  by  the  barracks  of  the  Roman 
soldiers,  as  it  is  generally  entered,  but  by  the  Street 
of  Tombs,  as  it  always  should  be  entered.  We 
stayed  for  hours,  and  in  the  scarcely  injured  house, 
called  La  Casa  di  Pansa,  partook  of  an  excellent 
refection,  with  fruit  and  good  wine  of  the  vintage 
of  Gragnano,  on  the  shelving  hills  near  Castellamare, 
all  furnished  by  the  provident  care  of  two  old 
ciceroni,  who  were  already  my  old  friends.  While 
standing  at  the  top  of  the  amphitheatre,  and  looking 
seaward,  the  poet  was  much  struck  by  a  small,  old 
castle,  built  on  and  quite  covering  a  lava  rock,  at 
a  very  short  distance  from  the  shore  of  the  bay ;  and 
he  was  still  more  interested  when  I  told  him  the 
castle  had  been  built  by  the  early  Norman  con- 
querors of  Apulia,  Naples,  and  Sicily,  by  one  of  the 
heroic  race  of  Guiscard,  whose  well-authenticated 
history  reads  like  a  romance.  On  leaving  Pompeii, 
Shelley  proposed  that  we  should  take  a  nearer  view 
of  the  castle,  and  go  down  to  the  beach.  This  we 
did,  and  sat  on  a  lava  rock,  with  the  sea  almost 
washing  our  feet,  until  sunset.  The  overpowering 
beauty  of  the  place,  the  time  and  tide,  subdued  us 
into  a  solemn,  musing,  meditative,  and  long  silence. 

We  spoke  not  a  word,  and  other  sound  there  was 
none  except  the  rippling  and  plashing  of  that  tideless, 
tranquil  sea,  as  its  waters  creamed,  in  a  long  curving 
line,  on  the  smooth  sands,  or  gently  struck  the  blocks 
of  ancient  lava  which  lie  rather  thickly  in  that  part 
of  the  bay. 


S  SHELLEY  [chap,  i 

If  one  is  never  merr}^  when  he  hears  sweet  music,  so 
is  he  never  merry  when  witnessing  a  sunset  in  scenery 
like  this;  but  my  companion's  expressive  countenance 
was  languid,  despondent,  melancholy,  quite  sad.  He 
did  not  write  them  here — he  certainly  wrote  nothing 
when  I  was  with  him,  and  was  not  the  man  to  indulge 
in  any  such  poetical  affectations ;  but  he  thought  here 
those  thrilUng  verses  which  in  the  collection  of  his 
minor  poems  are  called  *'  Stanzas,  v/ritten  in  dejec- 
tion, near  Naples."  Some  of  those  Hnes,  ever  since 
I  first  read  them,  have  haunted  me,  have  been 
upon  me  like  a  magic  spell ;  and  I  really  believe  that 
not  a  day  or  night  have  passed  without  my  repeating 
them  to  myself,  and  recalling  the  image  of  Shelley 
as  he  sat  on  that  seashore,  with  the  glowing  sunset 
shining  full  on  his  pale,  haggard  face. 

I  might  have  said,  by  anticipation,  what  Byron 
afterwards  said  of  Tasso  and  his  excessive  suscepti- 
bilities— 

"  Of  such  materials  wretched  men  are  made." 

His  own  "  Sensitive  Plant  "  was  not  so  sensitive, 
so  impressionable,  as  Shelley  himself.  He  was  all 
over  feeling,  and  all  his  feelings  were  of  the  acutest 
sort.  Had  he  not  been  drowned  as  he  was,  he  never 
could  have  lasted ;  the  bright,  sharp  sword  had  already 
outworn  the  scabbard.  Twice  when,  without  being 
observed,  I  looked  earnestly  at  him,  I  read  on  his 
countenance,  and  in  the  whole  of  his  delicate,  excited 
frame,  the  words,  "  Death,  early  death  !"  Yet — and 
because  he  was  so  impressionable,  so  thoroughly  alive 
to  external  nature — we  had  scarcely  got  back  to 
our  very  queer  and  very  rapid  conveyance  than  he 
rallied,  joked  in  good  Itahan  with  our  driver,  and 
became  most  cheerful  and  facetious.  We  pulled  up 
in  the  town  of  Torre  Annunziata,  where  the  best 
macaroni  is  manufactured  in  immense  quantities, 
and  as  I  took  him  over  one  of  the  manufactories, 
and   showed   him   how   they   worked    the   lever   by 


CHAP.i]  HIS  WIFE  9 

springing  up  and  down,  astride  of  the  timber,  like 
little  boys  playing  at  see-saw,  he  showed  all  the 
hilarity  and  fun  of  a  schoolboy.  At  the  door  was 
the  usual  number  of  beggars,  to  call  us  "  milords  " 
and  to  beg  for  farthings.  Shelley  emptied  his 
pockets,  and  away  we  went  in  the  calesso.  I  spoke 
of  the  mendicants  as  "  poor  creatures."  "  Not  a 
bit  of  it,"  said  the  Poet;  "  they  are  happier  than  I — 
I  dare  say  they  are  happier  than  you.  With  such 
a  sky  over  their  heads,  with  no  nipping  cold,  and 
with  full  liberty  to  wander  about  and  beg,  they  are 
happy  people.  Take  all  the  advantages  of  the 
climate  into  the  account,  and  I  would  ten  times 
rather  be  a  Neapolitan  beggar  than  an  EngHsh  artisan 
or  maid-of-all-work."  He  had  a  fit  of  moodiness 
as  we  rattled  over  the  lava-buried  city  of  Hercu- 
laneum,  and  saw  a  short  column  of  fire  projected 
from  the  uppermost  crater  of  Mount  Vesuvius;  but 
it  soon  passed,  and  we  re-entered  the  city  of  Naples 
in  a  cheerful,  talkative  disposition. 

That  evening,  I  saw  his  second  wife,  the  daughter 
of  William  Godwin  and  Mary  WoUstonecraft,  the 
**  twice  illustrious,  in  her  sire  and  mother,"  as  he  has 
styled  her.  She  was,  at  that  period,  a  very  delicate, 
elegant,  charming  person;  and  there  seemed  to  be 
great  affection  and  an  entire  confidence  between 
them. 

On  the  following  day  I  went  off  on  a  visit  to  the 
old  town  of  Montesarchio,  at  the  very  foot  of  M(ynU 
Taburno,  Virgil's  mountain,  and  not  far  from  the 
ancient  city  of  Beneventum.  A  day  or  two  after, 
Shelley  left  Naples  for  Rome,  being,  according  to 
Roskilly,  in  a  very  poor  way  when  he  started  on 
the  journey.  I  did  not  see  him  again  till  late  in  the 
year  1820,  and  then  I  saw  but  little  of  him,  for  he 
was  staying  at  Pisa  with  Lord  Byron,  Leigh  Hunt, 
Captain  Medwin,  and  one  or  two  others,  and  I  was 
only  passing  through  Pisa  on  my  way  to  Florence. 
I  saw  him  no  more,  though  I  was  very  near  meeting 


lo  SHELLEY  [chap,  i 

him  at  Leghorn  in  1822,  and  just  before  his  boat  was 
capsized  in  the  Gulf  of  Spezzia.  But  in  the  interval 
I  had  heard  a  great  deal  of  him  and  of  his  generous 
doings,  from  Keats,  Severn  the  painter,  Bopp  the 
sculptor,  and  others;  from  Italians  as  well  as  English; 
and  after  his  death,  when  I  visited  Lerici  and  the 
places  where  he  had  lived  on  the  Riviera  di  Genova, 
I  heard  a  great  deal  more  of  his  philanthropy,  his 
self-denial,  and  his  active,  self-sacrificing  benevolence. 
When  weak  and  ill,  and  in  rough  weather,  he  would 
cross  the  mountains  in  the  rear  of  the  Bay,  to  carry 
medicine  or  some  succour  or  comfort  to  the  sick 
family  of  a  poor  chestnut-eating  peasant;  when  in 
money  difficulties  of  his  own,  he  would  give  away 
his  last  dollar  and  trust  to  Providence,  or  to  his 
credit  in  the  place.*  I  know  for  a  certainty  that  when 
he  raised  ;^  1,600  to  clear  Leigh  Hunt  and  his  family 
in  England,  and  to  get  them  out  to  Italy,  he  was 
himself  embarrassed;  and  that  Lord  Byron,  who 
was  to  have  furnished  a  part  of  the  funds,  left  Shelley 
answerable  for  the  whole,  or  for  very  nearly  the  whole. 
All  that  Leigh  Hunt  says  on  this  subject  is  entitled 
to  full  credit.  Perhaps  it  would  have  been  better 
if  he  had  never  told  so  many  truths  about  his  lord- 
ship, in  whose  house  he  was  for  a  time  living;  but  he 
was  certainly  "  hardly  entreated  "  by  Don  Juan; 
and  in  all  essentials.  Hunt's  benefactor  was  Shelley, 
not  Byron.  Yet  Shelley,  this  practical  and  daily- 
practising  Christian,  had  wTitten  in  a  public  book 
the  word  ''  Atheist  "  after  his  name,  and  had  been 
from  his  Etonian  days  a  scoffer  at  Christianity  and 
a  contemner  of  all  revealed  religion.  A  sad  mistake, 
but  one  from  which  he  was  freeing  himself  at  least 
three  years  before  he  perished.  But,  in  fact,  his 
was    never    atheism,    but    a    sort    of    indescribable 

*  In  Jul^T^  Byron  gave  Leigh  Hunt  "  The  Vision  of  Judgment." 
On  the  2ist  July  Shelley  had  written  to  his  wife  that  Byron  had 
offered  Hunt  the  copyright  of  "The  Vision  of  Judgment "  for  his 
first  number.  "This  offer,  if  sincere,  is  more  than  enough  to  set 
UD  the  Tournal  :  and  if  sincere  will  c;pt  evervthinp  riffht." 


CHAP,  i]  HIS  CREED  II 

pantheism.  As  far  as  I  could  understand  him,  he 
had  put  in  the  place  of  the  Invisible,  this  visible 
and  no  doubt  very  beautiful  world ;  and  for  God  the 
Creator  he  had  substituted  God's  Creation.  This  he 
worshipped,  and  this  he  revered,  more  fervently, 
more  entirely,  than  most  men  revere  God  Himself. 
He  quibbled  about  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  but 
he  infused  a  soul  into  matter,  and  with  him  matter 
was  to  be  sentient,  eternal,  and  eternally  improvinjGj. 
He  shrank  with  horror  from  the  idea  of  a  **  be-all 
and  an  end-all  ";  his  soul  was  too  expansive  for  that. 
If  one  could  only  have  made  one  or  two  changes  in 
his  vocabulary,  poor  Shelley  must  have  been  con- 
sidered as  a  reverential,  devout  man.  For  God,  he 
read  Nature.  I  do  not  believe  that  he  could  have 
lived  much  longer  than  he  did;  but  I  do  most 
thoroughly  believe  that  with  him  a  prolongation  of 
days  would  have  brought  a  thorough  reformation  of 
doctrine;  that  perishing  as  he  did,  he  was  getting  his 
philosophy  and  his  religion  all  right.  He  had  become 
an  assiduous  reader  of  the  New  Testament,  and  of 
the  most  striking  books  of  the  Old  Testament;  evi- 
dence of  this  Biblical  reading  may  be  traced  in  the 
later  of  his  productions.  When  his  body  was  found 
in  the  Gulf  of  Spezzia,  a  well-worn  pocket  Bible  was 
found  in  his  sea-jacket.  With  his  pen,  with  his 
young  head  inflamed  by  a  liberalism  which  he  did 
not  understand,  against  t3Tants  and  oppressors  in 
the  abstract,  or  men  whom  he  considered  as  such, 
Shelley  no  doubt  could  be  vituperative,  violent, 
uncharitable,  to  the  utmost  extent  of  his  liberalism ; 
but  I  should  say  that  he  never  spoke  an  unkind 
word  of  any  living  creature  he  had  personally  known, 
and  that  no  man  could  be  more  averse  to  uncharitable- 
ness  of  opinion,  or  calumny,  or  any  species  of  denigra- 
tion. It  was  a  mistake,  it  was  one  of  his  many 
hallucinations,  but  there  was  a  distinguished  man  in 
England  whom  he  considered  as  his  oppressor,  as  a 
legal  tyrant,  and  as  his  mortal  enemy;  yet  in  speaking 


13  SHELLEY  [chap,  i 

of  him  he  said:  "  No  doubt  that  man  has  his  good 
quahties,  and  many  of  them." 

I  may  return  to  poor  Shelley  again ;  but,  this  time, 
before  we  part,  I  would  say  one  word  more  for  him. 
Delicate,  tremulous,  nervous,  over-sensitive  as  he 
was,  I  firmly  believe  that  for  the  sake  of  a  principle, 
or  for  the  sake  of  covering  the  weak  flank  of  a  friend 
or  of  any  unfortunate,  ill-used  person,  he  would  have 
faced  a  park  of  artillery,  or  have  braved  the  scaffold 
or  the  penal  fire. 


CHAPTER    II 

JOHN  KEATS 

The  enlightened  British  pubHc  never  committed  a 
greater  mistake  than  in  beheving,  on  the  rhymed 
''  dixit  "  of  Lord  Byron,  that  John  Keats 's  "  fiery 
particle  "  was  snuffed  out  by  a  single  Quarterly 
Review  article.  John  was  the  man  to  stand  whole 
broadsides  of  such  articles,  whether  from  Quarterly 
or  Edinburgh^  or  from  both,  with  a  united  and  con- 
centrated fire.  Little  in  body,  like  Moore,  he  was, 
like  Moore,  thoroughly  a  man.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  cheery  and  plucky  little  fellows  I  ever  knew; 
and  though  it  may  look  like  self-flattery,  I  think  I 
may  safely  say  that  neither  pluck  nor  fortitude 
always  choose  bulky  frames  and  lofty  statures  for 
their  lodging.  Keats  could  hardly  see  a  London 
street  row  without  the  impulsive  w^ish  to  be  in  the 
midst  of  it;  and  in  not  a  few  rows  he  had  his  wish 
gratified.  This  was  mere  frolic  and  youthful  love 
of  mischief  and  excitement,  or  it  was  an  innate  love 
of  fair-play ;  but  I  firmly  believe  that  by  the  side  of 
any  friend  Keats  would  have  faced  a  battery,  and 
would  have  stood  under  a  shower  of  cannon-balls, 
chain-shot,  canister  or  grape.  Though  he  belonged 
to  rather  an  affected  school,  at  times  a  hectoring  and 
pretentious  school,  poor  Keats  had  an  exceedingly 
small  allowance  of  literary  vanity.  He  would  often 
say:  "  I  have  a  notion  that  I  have  something  in  me, 
but  that  I  shall  never  be  able  to  bring  it  out.  I  feel 
all  but  sure  that  I  never  shall."  When  dying,  the 
motto  he  dictated  for  that  tombstone,  which  his  and 

13  3 


14  JOHN  KEATS  [chap,  ii 

my  dear  friend  Joseph  Severn  saw  erected  to  his 
memory,  was  this:  "  Here  Hes  one  whose  name  is 
written  in  water."  Poor  fellow  !  he  died,  not  of  an 
article,  but  of  consumption,  as  an  elder  sister,  and 
I  think  a  brother,  had  done  before  him.  When  he 
first  came  to  Naples,  and  even  when  he  was  pro- 
ceeding thence  to  Rome,  it  was  thought  that  he 
might  rally,  and  even  recover;  but  it  was  not  to  be. 
I  loved  some  of  Keats 's  poems  then,  when  I  had  not 
completed  my  twenty-first  year,  and  I  love  them 
still,  now  that  I  am  hastening  to  the  conclusion  of 
my  fifty-seventh;  but  I  rather  think  that  what  I 
most  admired  in  Keats  were  his  pluck  and  thorough 
abhorrence  of  what — after  my  friend  Thomas  Carlyle 
— we  now  call  "  shams." 

Late  in  the  autumn  of  1820,  when  he  arrived  at 
Naples,  or  rather  at  the  commencement  of  the 
winter  of  that  year,  he  was  driving  with  my  friend 
Charles  Cottrell  from  the  Bourbon  Museum,  up  the 
beautiful  open  road  which  leads  up  to  Capo  di  Monte 
and  the  Ponte  Rossi.  On  the  way,  in  front  of  a 
villa  or  cottage,  he  was  struck  and  moved  by  the 
sight  of  some  rose-trees  in  full  bearing.  Thinking  to 
gratify  the  invalid,  Cottrell,  a  ci-devant  officer  in 
the  British  Navy,  jumped  out  of  the  carriage,  spoke 
to  somebody  about  the  house  or  garden,  and  was 
back  in  a  trice  with  a  bouquet  of  roses. 

"  How  late  in  the  year  !  What  an  exquisite 
climate!"  said  the  Poet;  but  on  putting  them  to 
his  nose,  he  threw  the  flowers  down  on  the  opposite 
seat,  and  exclaimed:  ''Humbugs!  they  have  no 
scent  !  What  is  a  rose  without  its  fragrance  ?  I 
hate  and  abhor  all  humbug,  whether  in  a  flower  or 
in  a  man  or  woman  !"  And  having  worked  himself 
strongly  up  in  the  anti-humbug  humour,  he  cast 
the  bouquet  out  on  the  road.  I  suppose  that  the 
flowers  were  China  roses,  which  have  little  odour 
at  any  time,  and  hardly  any  at  the  approach  of 
winter. 


CHAP,  ii]  CAMPBELL  AND  THE  POLES  15 

Returning  from  that  drive,  he  had  intense  enjoy- 
ment in  halting  close  to  the  Capuan  Gate,  and  in 
watching  a  group  of  lazzaroni  or  labouring  men,  as, 
at  a  stall  with  fire  and  cauldron  by  the  roadside 
in  the  open  air,  they  were  disposing  of  an  incredible 
quantity  of  macaroni,  introducing  it  in  long,  un- 
broken strings  into  their  capacious  mouths,  without 
the  intermediary  of  anything  but  their  hands.  "  I 
like  this,"  said  he;  "  these  hearty  fellows  scorn  the 
humbug  of  knives  and  forks.  Fingers  were  in- 
vented first.  Give  them  some  carlini  that  they 
may  eat  more  !  Glorious  sight  I  How  they  take 
it  in!" 


THOMAS  CAMPBELL 

My  great  intimacy  with  the  poet  began  in  the  winter 
of  1829,  and  terminated  rather  suddenly  in  the 
autumn  of  1832,  in  a  quarrel,  or  rather  in  an  offence 
he  took  at  some  remarks  I  hazarded  on  the  Poles, 
their  former  history,  and  their  late  revolution.  He 
bounced  out  of  the  house  where  we  had  been  dining 
in  a  red-hot  passion,  telling  our  host  that  I  had  been 
talking  about  what  I  did  not  understand ;  that  all 
the  books  I  had  quoted  were  false  and  fabulous; 
that  Ruilhi^re's  book  on  the  anarchy  of  Poland  was 
a  perfect  romance;  that  a  history  of  Poland,  upon 
national  authorities,  was  yet  to  be  compiled;  and 
that,  perhaps,  he  might  write  it.  I  was  exceedingly 
sorry  at  this  rupture,  for  notwithstanding  sundry 
infirmities  of  temper,  and  not  very  agreeable  irregu- 
larities of  conduct  and  manners,  I  was  disposed  to 
cling  to  the  man.  I  highly  admired — no  one  more — 
the  poetical  genius  he  had  displayed  in  early  life; 
he  was  a  Scotsman,  nay  more,  he  was  all  but  a 
Highlander,  claiming  affinit}^  with  one  of  our  noblest 
clans ;  he  was  my  superior  in  learned  accomplish- 
ments, and  my  senior  by  a  good  many  years.  With 
all  this  I  could  not  be,  and  I  am  quite  sure  I  was 


1 6  THOMAS  CAMPBELL  [chap,  ii 

not,  disrespectful  or  intemperate  in  my  language 
or  manner  towards  him.  Seeing  how  widely  we 
disagreed  on  the  PoHsh  question,  I  twice  tried  to 
change  the  subject,  but  he  would  not  let  me  ;  he  would 
go  on  to  convince  me  against  my  will,  or  rather 
against  my  better  judgment.  The  very  next  morning 
I  sent  our  mutual  Scottish  friend,  L.  M.,  to  sue  for 
peace.  "  Tell  him,"  said  I  to  the  mediator,  *'  that 
I  beg  his  pardon,  that  I  will  never  again  dispute 
with  him  about  Poland,  that  for  all  that  I  shall  say 
to  the  contrary  he  may  make  demi-gods  of  all  the 
Poles,  applaud  their  elective  monarchy  system  as 
the  perfection  of  good  government,  and  declare  that 
no  British  Parliament  was  ever  to  be  put  in  comparison 
with  the  Polish  Diet  held  on  horseback  with  drawn 
sabres,  and  that  the  most  constitutional  mode  of 
disposing  of  a  troublesome  minority  was  to  cut  its 
throat  or  shoot  it,  as  his  admired  Sarmatians  had 
so  often  done."  The  friendly  mediation  failed. 
Tommy  would  not  be  pacified.  During  several  more 
years  we  met  rather  frequently,  at  Miss  G.'s,  now 
Countess  of  H.,  at  John  Murray's,  at  Longman's,  and 
at  other  places  of  resort,  but  he  always  gave  me  the 
cold  shoulder,  until  one  damp,  cold,  foggy  morning 
I  met  him  in  the  narrow  part  of  Argyll  Street,  looking 
ill,  seedy,  and  quite  shaken.  I  was  so  affected  by 
his  altered  appearance,  that  not  without  some  fear 
of  a  rebuff,  I  crossed  the  street  and  addressed  him. 
This  time  he  held  out  his  hand,  and  was  quite  gentle 
and  even  friendly.  He  told  me  that  he  had  been  ill, 
very  ill,  but  that  he  thought  of  going  over  to  France, 
and  that  would  set  him  up.  His  remarkably  fine 
dark  eyes  were  still  brilliant  and  flashing,  though 
less  so  than  formerly.  We  parted  with  cordial 
hand-shaking,  and  I  never  saw  him  again.  When 
I  related  our  brouillerie  to  W.  S.  Rose,  he  said : 
"  Oh  !  I  could  have  told  you  beforehand  that  if 
you  got  upon  Polish  ground  with  Campbell,  a  squabble 
would  be  the  inevitable  consequence,    Tonirny  is  a 


CHAP.  II]     CAMPBELL  AND  THE  POLES  17 

Polomaniac,  and  has  been  so  ever  since  he  wrote 
that  famous  Hne  in  the  '  Pleasures  of  Hope  ' — '  And 
Freedom  shrieked  when  Kosciusko  fell  ' — not  that 
there  was  much  freedom  in  that  land  of  serfs  to 
shriek — and  that  line,  and  the  few  which  precede  it, 
have  made  him  a  sort  of  rallying-point,  and  an  idol 
with  all  the  Polish  fugitives  who  get  to  England. 
These  men  flatter  him  and  bedaub  him  with  praise. 
Oh,  how  they  do  lay  it  on  !  But  poor  Campbell  likes 
it — nay,  he  loves  to  be  flattered  and  bedaubed.  With 
the  single  exception  of  old  '  Oberon '  Sotheby  and 
Lord  Byron,  I  think  he  is  about  the  vainest  man  I  have 
known;  but  Byron  had  the  good  taste  to  love  praise 
from  the  Landati,  and  would  very  soon  get  impatient 
and  angry  at  the  compliments  of  nobodies,  or  at 
coarse,  clumsy,  vulgar  laudation.  I  once  told  Camp- 
bell that  when  he  went  forth  to  walk  through  the 
streets  he  ought  to  have  a  barber's  pole  carried  before 
him,  and  that  a  barber's  pole  ought  always  to  project 
over  his  street-door.  I  wonder  that  he  never  catches 
the  itch  from  some  of  his  frowsy  associates,  for  I  am 
told  that  the  itch  is  much  more  a  national  complaint 
in  Poland  than  ever  it  was  in  Scotland.  But  let  us 
return  to  good  nature.  I  liked  poor  Campbell; 
I  w^ould  give  my  left  hand  or  both  my  ears  to  have 
written  some  of  his  best  lyrics.  Tell  him  I  say 
so,  and  shake  hands  with  him  for  me  when  you 
meet  him,  or  when  you  make  up  this  Highland 
feud." 

For  a  very  long  time  I  rarely  met  the  Bard  of  Hope, 
in  street,  house,  theatre,  or  elsewhere,  without 
finding  him  attended  by  a  longish  Polish  tail.  From 
circumstances  previously  explained,  he  could  not 
by  any  possibility  take  very  many  of  his  refugees 
into  decent  houses;  but  still  he  introduced  a  con- 
siderable number  in  good  society,  and  among  these 
were  some  who  did  no  honour  to  his  introduction. 
I  remember  being  told  that  he  was  disquieted  by 
a    story    about    the    mysterious    disappearance    of 


1 8  THOMAS  CAMPBELL  [chap,  ii 

some  silver  spoons  and  forks,   after  a  supper  ches 

Madame  ,  to  which  he  had  conducted  some  of 

his  proteges. 

The  clear  distinction  necessary  to  be  made  between 
Upper  Seymour  Street  and  Lower  Seymour  Street 
will  sufficiently  explain  Tommy's  convivial  foibles. 
While  our  friendly  league  and  covenant  lasted,  he 
would  often  come  in  upon  me  late  at  night.  Often 
when  we  had  dined  together  at  John  Murray's, 
and  each  had  taken  more  wine  than  he  ought  to  have 
done,  he  would,  at  midnight,  or  even  at  a  later 
hour,  go  home  with  me  "  to  finish  the  evening," 
as  he  facetiously  called  it.  I  was  as  yet  a  bachelor, 
living  in  very  comfortable,  choice  apartments,  in 
Berners  Street,  Oxford  Street,  in  the  house  of  good 
little  Rolandi,  the  Italian  bookseller,  who  allowed  me 
the  bachelor  privilege  of  the  latch-key,  and  always 
saw,  before  going  to  his  own  early  bed,  that  my  fire 
was  in  good  burning  order,  and  that  my  little  comforts 
were  at  hand.  '*  And  now,  Mac,"  the  bard  would 
say — **  now,  Mac,  for  a  glass  of  toddy  !  Your  whisky 
is  very  good,  and  we  will  have  a  crack.  Time  was 
made  for  slaves."  Three  or  four  times  he  remained 
till  daylight,  and  twice  he  slept  on  a  good  broad 
sofa  in  my  sitting-room,  and  stayed  till  twelve  or 
one  o'clock  next  day.  Warned  by  what  had  happened 
to  K.  and  B.  S.  L.,  I  preferred  accommodating  him 
with  a  sofa  to  adventuring  with  him  in  a  hackney 
coach,  though  I  had  a  coach-stand  conveniently 
near.  I  cannot  plead  the  nocturnal  water-drinking 
of  poor  Sir  Walter,  but  I  rather  think  that  for  one 
tumbler  of  toddy  that  I  took,  Campbell  must  have 
taken  three.  The  worst  of  it — or  at  least  a  very  bad 
part  of  it — ^was,  that  drink  did  not  improve  Tommy's 
temper;  it  made  him  impatient,  captious,  and  queru- 
lous, and  at  times  violently  passionate  and  un- 
commonly unpleasant. 

So  long  as  his  poor  wife  lived,  and  they  sojourned 


CHAP.  II]  HIS  PROPENSITIES  19 

in  the  cottage  at  Sydenham,  he  was  kept  in  tolerable 
order;  and  was,  on  the  whole,  a  douce,  prudent, 
quiet-going  bard.  "  You  should  have  known  him 
then,"  said  his  very  old  Scottish  friend,  Mrs.  E., 
"  and  you  must  not  judge  of  him  as  he  was  then, 
by  what  you  see  of  him  now.  From  the  day  of  his 
wife's  death,  or  at  latest  from  the  day  when  he  got 
over  his  grief  for  her  loss,  Tommy  broke  loose,  and 
has  never  brought  up  since.  It  is  a  sad  pity,  for 
all  we  London-dwelling  Scots  honoured  him  and  were 
so  fond  of  him,  and  he  might  have  done  so  well. 
One  by  one  he  has  contrived  to  quarrel  with  or  to 
annoy,  beyond  bearing,  nearly  all  his  old  friends, 
whether  Scottish  or  English.  The  last  time  he  was 
in  my  house  he  broke  the  claret-jug  and  three 
glasses." 

I  remember  as  one  of  Campbell's  characteristics 
that  he  could  not  bear  to  be,  after  dinner,  in  the  same 
drawing-room  with  Moore,  because  the  Irish  minstrel 
sang  his  melodies  and  accompanied  himself  very 
sweetly  on  the  piano,  thus  attracting  much  of  the 
homage  for  which  Campbell  was  so  greedy,  and  ab- 
sorbing all  the  attention  of  the  company,  of  which 
he  would  fain  have  made  a  monopoly  for  himself.  I 
have  heard  him  very,  very  severe  on  Moore's  *'  Lalla 
Rookh,"  and  on  his  poetical  style  generally.  He 
called  it  "  washy,"  a  word  he  had  taken  from  the 
vocabulary  of  his  sometime  close  ally,  Mrs.  Siddons, 
the  tragic  actress,  of  whom,  after  her  death,  he  wrote 
a  very  incorrect,  "  washy  "  Life.  But  I  believe  that 
of  the  said  Life  or  Memoir,  he  himself,  in  reality, 
wrote  very  little. 

The  bard  of  "  Hohenlinden  "  for  many  years 
wore  a  wig,  of  which  mention  will  be  found  in  my 
book  of  "  Table  Talk,"  biography,  and  literary 
souvenirs.  It  was  a  wig  not  at  all  suited  to  his  age 
and  complexion ;  it  was  a  fine  black  wig  with  Hyperion 
curls,  and  generally  well  oiled  and  perfumed.     One 


20  THOMAS  CAMPBELL  [chap,  ii 

night,  after  a  very  jovial  dinner  at  old  John  Murray's, 
and  while  the  claret-jugs  were  still  in  rapid  circulation, 
Theodore  Hook  was  called  upon  to  sing  one  of  his 
improvised  songs.  He  was  in  "  keff  "  and  in  vein; 
he  sang  three  songs  in  succession,  and  really  excelled 
himself.  Campbell,  considerably  more  than  three- 
parts  "  fou,"  went  off  into  an  ecstasy,  and  taking 
his  wig  off  his  head,  he  threw  it  across  the  table  at 
Theodore,  shouting,  "  There,  you  dog  !  Take  my 
laurels  !     They  are  yours  !" 

The  laughter  was  uproarious,  and  it  did  not  cease 
until  long  after  the  elder  bard  had  recovered  his  wig, 
and  had  covered  his  bald,  shining  pate.  Washington 
Irving  laughed  until  his  sides  ached,  and  then  with 
a  sly,  demure  face  told  Campbell  that  he  had  never 
before  fancied  that  those  poetical  locks  were  not  of 
his  own  growth.  In  those  days — between  1829  and 
1833 — we  had  very  frequently  high  jinks  in  Albe- 
marle Street.  Then,  too,  there  was  fat,  jolly  old 
bibliopole  and  opera  man,  old  Andrews  of  Bond 
Street,  who  now  and  then  gave  a  dinner  to  authors 
and  wits,  and  gave  it  in  good  style,  with  champagne 
and  claret  a  discretion,  or  rather  a  indiscretion. 
It  was  at  one  of  this  very  fat  man's  symposia  that 
the  author  of  the  '*  Pleasures  of  Hope"  so  far  ex- 
ceeded limits  that  a  hackney  coach  had  to  be  sent 
for,  and  C.  K.  and  B.  S.  L.  were  obliged  to  see 
him  home. 

Tommy  was  past  speech,  and  Andrews,  in  giving 
his  address,  forgot  to  give  the  important  word 
"  Upper."  The  coachman  drove  as  directed;  and 
then,  descending  from  his  box,  gave  a  violent  tug 
at  the  bell,  and  pla3'ed  an  equally  violent  ''  rat-tat- 
tat  "  with  the  knocker.  Presently  the  head  of  a 
man  was  projected  from  an  attic  window.     "  Who's 

there?"  cried  he.     ''  Mr.  Campbell,"  said  C.     "  D 

Mr.  Campbell  !"  cried  the  man.     *'  This  is  the  third 
time  within  a  week  that  I  have  been  knocked  out 


CHAP.  II]     UPPER  SEYMOUR  STREET  21 

of  my  bed  in  the  middle  of  the  night  on  his  account. 
He  Hves  in  Upper  Seymour  Street.  This  is  Lower 
Seymour  Street  !"  He  banged  down  the  window, 
and  the  two  friends  conveyed  their  rather  trouble- 
some and  quite  unconscious  charge  to  his  own 
door. 


CHAPTER  III 

GEORGE  DOUGLAS— SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 

George  Douglas  was  the  son  of  Dr.  Douglas  of 
Galashiels,  the  near  neighbour  and  bosom  friend 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  I  met  him  at  Smyrna,  late  in 
the  summer  of  1827.  It  was  at  a  cheerful  merchant 
supper,  after  the  departure  of  the  post  for  Con- 
stantinople; a  supper  such  as  we  are  beginning  to 
lose  the  remembrance  of,  not  only  in  the  West,  but 
in  the  westified  East. 

We  sat  together  and  swore  an  eternal  friendship; 
not  quite  so  ungroundedly  as  the  two  ladies  in  George 
Canning's  mock  drama  ;*  for  he  had  known  something 
of  me  through  a  friend  of  twelve  years'  standing, 
and  I  had  known  something  of  him,  and  a  good  deal 
of  his  father,  the  Doctor. 

George  had  been  merchandising  at  Trieste,  and 
was  now  attempting  to  merchandise  at  Smyrna. 

In  my  great  ignorance  of  the  subject,  I  should  not 
like  to  venture  anything  at  all  approaching  to  a 
decisive  opinion,  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  Douglas 
had  small  aptitude,  and  still  less  taste,  for  commercial 
pursuits.  He  also  had  a  competency  which  relieved 
him  from  any  vigorous  attention  to  trade,  or  to 
figs,  opium,  valonia,  carpets,  rugs,  or  to  anything  of 
that  kind.  He  was  a  man  of  humour,  if  there  ever 
were  one;  he  was  a  man  of  wit,  with  a  marvellous 
memory.     I  shall  never  forget  that,  for  months  and 

*  "  The  Rovers;  or,  The  Double  Arrangement,"  a  Parody,  by 
Canning  and  Frere,  of  Schiller's  "  Robbers "  and  Goethe's 
"  Stella  "  (Poetry  of  the  Anti- Jacobin,  4th  June,  1798). 

22 


CHAP.  Ill]    THE  WAVERLEY  NOVELS  23 

months,  his  Smyrna  barracks  were  for  me  a  home; 
and  still  less  shall  I  be  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  my 
first  introduction  or  presentation  to  Sir  Walter  Scott 
was  through,  and  directly  by,  George  Douglas. 
Poor  George  !  //  ttait  un  tant  soil  peu  trop  bon 
vivant. 

He  came  home,  and  having  nothing  in  the  world 
to  do — about  the  worst  calamity  that  can  befall 
any  man — he  took  to  late  whist  parties  and  Glasgow 
punch,  and  so  died,  prematurely,  and  to  my  great 
grief,  in  the  city  of  St.  Mungo. 

He  stayed  with  me  in  London  in  1831,  and  he  was 
my  host  at  Glasgow  in  the  spring  of  1832,  when  he, 
William  Hamilton,  and  I,  planned  and  executed  a 
delightful  trip  through  a  part  of  Argyllshire,  which 
included  dear  old  Arrochar,  the  chief  nido,  or  nest, 
of  Clan  MacFarlane.  George  had  quite  a  reverence 
for  Walter  Scott,  whom  he  had  known  from  his 
youth  upwards;  and  through  the  great  intimacy  his 
father,  the  Doctor,  had  enjoyed  with  the  poet  and 
novelist,  he  was  in  hereditary  possession  of  many 
facts  regarding  the  author  of  "  The  Lay  of  the  Last 
Minstrel  "  and  of  "  Waverley."  He  said  that  the 
mystery,  so  long  maintained,  about  the  Waverley 
novels  was  no  mystery  to  him,  for  from  the  first  he 
recognized  so  many  of  the  anecdotes,  Scottish  quiddi- 
ties, and  odd  sayings  which  he  had  heard  from  his 
own  father,  and  which  his  father  had  told  to  Scott. 

"  Many  of  the  good  things  in  those  tales,"  said 
he,  "  were  quite  family  property,  for  my  poor  father, 
who  was  amazingly  fond  of  such  things,  had  inherited 
most  of  them  from  his  father,  who  also  was  amazingly 
fond  of  old  stories,  bits  of  humour,  and  drollery. 

"  Sir  Walter  never  seemed  to  be  more  happy 
than  when  there  was  nobody  with  him  but  his  own 
family  and  my  father,  myself,  or  my  sister.  He 
would  generally  lead  off  with  some  '  auld  tale,' 
which  my  father  would  cap ;  then  would  follow  another 
from  Sir  Walter,  and  then  this  would  be  capped  by 


24  GEORGE  DOUGLAS  [chap,  hi 

the  Doctor.  There  was  the  most  perfect  under- 
standing, sympathy,  and  community  of  taste  between 
them.  From  Galashiels  up  to  Abbotsford  is,  as  you 
know,  but  a  short  walk.  In  the  daytime  Sir  Walter 
was  frequently  in  our  little  town,  and  at  our  quiet 
house;  and  in  the  evening  we  frequently  walked  up 
to  Abbotsford.  I  remember  one  night,  when  my 
sister  had  seen  by  the  timepiece  that  it  was  near 
twelve  o'clock,  and  she  was  nudging  her  father  to 
start  for  home,  how  Scott  exclaimed  in  his  beloved 
Doric :  *  Toot,  toot,  lassie  !  Dinna  fash  !  Bide  a 
wee,  lassie  !  Dinna  break  good  talk  !  The  Doctor 
is  in  excellent  vein  to-night.  Let  him  finish  his 
story,  and  then  w^e  won't  go,  but  just  have  one  story 
more,  and  the  stirrup-cup  of  toddy  !' 

"  And  so,"  continued  George,  "  we  stayed  into 
the  small  hours,  and  then  walked  home  by  clear 
moonlight.  By  habit,  Scott  was  not  at  all  a  late 
sitter,  for  he  liked  to  rise  early,  and  to  get  through 
a  good  day's  work  before  many  of  his  neighbours 
were  out  of  their  beds. 

''  But  he  did  not  mind  making  a  night  of  it  now 
and  then,  and  generally  when  my  father,  or  that 
brave  old  soldier,  Adam  Ferguson,  was  with  him, 
he  would  sit  rather  late.  I  remember  his  coming 
into  Galashiels  one  morning  very  early,  and  looking 
as  if  he  had  not  been  in  bed,  or  had  not  slept.  My 
father  noticed  his  unusual  appearance,  and  asked  him 
what  he  had  been  about.  *  To  confess  the  truth, 
Doctor,'  said  he,  '  I  have  been  sitting  up  all  night 

with  that  wild  Hielander,  Captain  Mac ,  drinking 

brandy  and  w^ater.'  *  Brandy  and  water  !  And  all 
night  !'  said  my  father,  in  astonishment.  '  Just  so. 
Doctor ;  but  the  Captain  drank  the  brandy,  and  I  the 
water.'  "  There  was  another  tie  that  united  the 
Doctor  and  the  poet.  Both  were  exceedingly  fond 
of  agriculture,  planting,  and  all  rural  occupations; 
and  the  Doctor  was,  to  a  very  great  extent,  an 
agricultural  improver. 


CHAP.  Ill]      SCOTT  AT  ABBOTSFORD  25 

He  had  written  and  published  several  valuable 
treatises,  which  Scott  took  for  his  guides,  and  he 
had  made  some  valuable  innovations  on  the  farming 
system  of  the  district.  When  they  were  not  at  their 
anecdotes,  they  were  almost  invariably  talking  about 
plantations  or  farms,  kine  or  other  stock. 

It  was  from  Dr.  Douglas,  who  had  inherited  it 
from  his  father,  that  Scott  purchased  the  small 
property  which  became  the  nucleus  of  Abbotsford. 
It  consisted  of  only  a  few  acres,  and  a  small  fishing- 
house,  used  by  the  Doctor  and  his  family  as  a  place 
of  occasional  resort  during  the  summer  and  autumn. 
Well  had  it  been  for  Scott  if  he  had  merely  enlarged 
the  house,  and  had  abstained  from  land  purchases  ! 
He  was  so  ill-provided  with  "  siller  "  when  he  made 
his  first  purchase,  that  the  whole  of  the  money  was 
not  paid  up  for  several  3^ears.  In  remitting  the  last 
cheque  Scott  very  characteristically  enclosed  it  in 
a  rhyming  letter.  I  forget  most  of  the  doggerel, 
but  remember  that  it  ended  thus — 

"  So,  Doctor  and  friend, 
We  come  to  an  end; 
The  goud's  thine. 
And  the  land's  mine." 

Dr.  Douglas  was  very  reluctant  to  sell  that  little 
bit  of  paternal  estate,  but  he  was  fond  of  Scott,  and 
could  not  resist  his  importunities.  The  poet  must 
have  that  fishing-lodge,  that  bit  of  Tweedside, 
and  nothing  else;  and  he  had  a  hundred  reasons  to 
show  why  it  suited  him  and  his  poetical  avocations 
better  than  any  other  place  on  the  beautiful  river. 
Yet  Abbotsford,  even  now  that  it  has  been  improved 
by  Scott's  plantations,  is  very  far  from  being  the 
most  picturesque  place  in  that  vicinity.  Ashestiel, 
higher  up  the  Tweed,  where  Scott  lived  so  long,  and 
spent  by  far  the  happiest  part  of  his  life,  is  far  prefer- 
able; and  both  above  and  below  Abbotsford  there 
are  sites  infinitely  more  picturesque.  But  Sir  Walter 
loved  Abbotsford  for  its  traditions,  as  may  be  learned 


26  GEORGE  DOUGLAS  [chap,  hi 

from  his  letters  and  his  Life  by  Lockhart.  George 
Douglas  more  than  confirmed  all  that  has  been  said 
about  the  exquisite  pleasantry  in  conversation,  the 
accessibility,  the  good  nature,  the  thorough  kindliness 
of  heart,  and  the  bonhomie  of  Sir  Walter — the  bon- 
homie being,  however,  always  attended  by  a  vast 
deal  of  shrewdness. 

"  By  means  unknown  to  me,"  he  said,  "  my 
father  became  aware  of  the  fact  that  Scott's  affairs 
were  in  an  embarrassed  and  rather  perilous  state 
some  years  before  the  great  crash  of  1825,  and  he 
used  to  groan  over  the  enormous  expenses  the  poet 
was  incurring  in  entertaining  great  lords  and  ladies, 
and  every  stranger  that  presented  himself,  and  in 
purchasing  at  unreasonable  prices  unproductive  and 
most  unprofitable  lands.  He  saw,  too,  that  the 
poet's  hilarity  was  somewhat  on  the  decline,  that 
his  brow  was  not  unfrequently  clouded,  and  he  used 
to  say  to  my  sister:  '  Eh,  lassie  !  poor  Scott  was  a 
happier  man  before  he  set  up  for  a  great  laird,  and 
turned  the  fishing-lodge  into  a  chateau  !' 

"  I  was  in  Italy,"  continued  Douglas,  ''  when  the 
blow  fell.  I  was  deeply  grieved,  but  not  astonished. 
I  have  not  seen  Sir  Walter  since  then,  but  learn  from 
my  sister  that  he  is  sadly  altered." 

This  was  said  at  Smyrna  in  1827.  In  the  summer 
of  1 83 1,  my  friend,  who  had  just  returned  from 
Turkey,  accompanied  me,  one  fine  morning,  to  the 
British  Museum.  As  he  wanted  to  see  everything, 
I  took  him  through  the  library;  and  there,  in  an  inner, 
private  room,  seated  at  a  table  with  an  open  black- 
letter  volume  before  him,  was  the  author  of  the 
Waverley  novels.  Douglas  started,  coloured,  and 
involuntarily  exclaimed,  "  Sir  Walter  !" 

Scott  rose,  perused  his  face,  and  in  an  instant 
grasped  his  hand  most  heartily,  saying,  ''  Georgie, 
my  man  !  Is  it  really  you  ?  I  thought  you  were 
living  like  a  Mussulman  among  the  infidel  Turks  ! 
In  the  name  of  the  Prophet,  figs  !     I  hope  you  have 


CHAP.  Ill]   SCOTT  AT  BRITISH  MUSEUM  27 

made  a  fortune  by  figs  ?"  Then  followed  a  long 
series  of  questions  on  both  sides  about  long-parted 
friends,  and  old  scenes  and  places.  Nothing  could 
well  exceed  the  kindness  and  cordiality  of  Scott's 
manner.  I  had  stepped  aside  and  had  taken  up  a 
book,  when  George  came  to  me  and  said  that  Sir 
Walter  would  like  to  shake  hands  with  me,  as  he 
liked  some  of  my  doings,  and  that  he  was  much 
inclined  to  like  anyone  that  was  a  friend  to  George 
Douglas. 

When  I  was  quite  a  boy,  the  poet  had  been  pointed 
out  to  me  in  the  streets  of  Edinburgh  as  one  that  did 
honour  to  old  Scotland ;  but  this  was  my  first  meeting 
and  shaking  hands  with  him.  At  the  time,  I  could 
scarcely  have  desired  anything  more  delightful. 
We  sat  with  him  for  a  good  hour,  when  we  were 
interrupted  by  old  Sir  Henry  Ellis,  the  Chief  Librarian, 
iwho  brought  in  from  the  public  reading-room  a 
dingy  lady  in  black — an  authoress  or  bas  bleu,  I 
presumed — who  was  dying  for  a  sight  of  the  bard. 

"  He  is  sadly  altered,"  said  George,  as  we  walked 
to  another  part  of  the  Museum,  "  but  I  have  not 
seen  him  for  a  good  many  years;  and  time,  even 
without  troubles,  works  sad  changes.  Did  you  ob- 
serve how  lame  he  is,  and  how  feeble  ?  His  voice 
and  his  laugh  are  lowered,  quite  altered.  I  can  re- 
member him  when  he  was  the  boldest  rider,  the  most 
active  man  in  all  Selkirkshire,  and  when  you  might 
have  heard  his  loud,  hearty  laugh  half  a  mile  off. 
How  grieved  would  have  been  my  father  if  he  had 
lived  to  see  this  change  !" 

I  believe  it  was  the  very  day  after  this  rencontre 
in  the  library  that  I  met  Sir  Walter  at  Albemarle 
Street,  in  John  Murray's  w^ll-known,  and  at  that 
time  much-frequented  drawing-room.  He  told  me 
in  rather  a  melancholy  tone,  and  with  an  expression 
of  countenance  that  plainly  said,  "  I  would  rather 
stay  at  home  by  my  own  Tweedside  !"  that  he  was 
going  for  the  benefit  of  his  health  to  Malta  and  Italy, 


28  GEORGE  DOUGLAS  [chap,  hi 

and  he  asked  me  a  few  questions  about  interesting 
places,  distances,  and  the  best  mode  of  travelhng 
in  the  Peninsula.  I  was  delighted  with  him,  but 
grieved  at  the  state  he  was  in,  which  induced  me  to 
doubt  if  he  would  ever  return  alive.  Murray  pressed 
him  to  stay  to  dinner,  as  Washington  Irving  and 
other  friends  w^ere  coming ;  but  in  the  kindest  and  most 
truly  polite  way  Sir  Walter  excused  himself.  He 
sailed  for  Malta  a  few  days  after  this  meeting,  and 
I  saw  him  no  more. 

When  he  returned  in  1832,  and  stayed  for  a  short 
time  in  London,  at  the  Waterloo  Hotel,  Jermyn 
Street,  St.  James's,  he  was  too  ill  to  receive  any 
but  members  of  his  own  family,  a  physician,  and  a 
very  few  old  and  particular  friends. 

I  well  remember  the  bright  June  day,  when,  in 
a  dying  state  as  I  was  told,  he  was  lifted  into  his 
carriage  to  be  conveyed  to  Abbotsford,  where  he 
died  on  the  21st  September.  Quite  a  crowd  had 
gathered  in  Jermyn  Street,  and  there  were  heads 
projected  from  nearly  every  shop  door  and  window. 
A  proper  reverence  was  paid  to  departing  genius 
and  worth.  Nearly  every  man,  gentle  or  simple, 
took  off  his  hat  as  the  carriage  rolled  past. 


CHAPTER  IV 

WILLIAM  STEWART  ROSE 

A  MISERABLE  malaria  fever,  caught  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Constantinople  in  the  summer  of  1828,  re- 
turned upon  me  in  London  in  the  spring  of  1829,  and 
reduced  me  to  a  pitiful  case.    That  same  year  I  went 
down  to  Brighton,  to  pass  the  autumn  and  to  get 
through  some  of  the  months  of  our  Enghsh  winter, 
with  which  I  had  had  no  acquaintance  for  the  last 
nine  years .     King  John  of  Albemarle  Street — John  1 1 . 
— gave  me  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Horace  Smith, 
who  had  long  been  settled  at  Brighton  in  a  very 
pleasant   and  well-frequented   house.     It  was  here, 
two  or  three  days  after  my  arrival,  that  I  first  met  poor 
dear  Rose.    I  liked  Horace  pretty  well,  but  here  was  a 
man  of  my  own  kidney — a  man  to  my  heart  of  hearts. 
The  soiree  was  rather  a  full  one,  and  contained  a 
fair  sprinkhng  of  celebrities  and  characters,  such  as 
Thomas  Campbell,  the  poet;  poor  Kenney,  the  drama- 
tist ;  Thomas  Hood,  of  facetious  and  pathetic  memory ; 
Miss  Crump,  the  authoress;  old  Masquerier,  the  once 
fashionable  portrait-painter,  whom  I  had  known  in 
the  great  Babylon  in  the  days  of  my  youth,  and  who 
had  now  retired  to  Brighton  on  a  decent  fortune  ob- 
tained by  marriage;  old  Tommy  Hill,  who  sat  for  the 
portrait  and  character  of  Paul  Pry;  Httle  wizened 
Mandeville,  who  was  only  remarkable  from  being  the 
oldest  attache  in  the  Service;  and  Beau  Cradock  or 
Caradoc,   now    Lord    Howden,   Ambassador   at    the 
Court  of  Madrid,  and  at  this  period  one  of  the  most 
handsome  and  elegant  men  in   Europe.     As   I  had 


30  WILLIAM  STEWART  ROSE     [chap,  iv 

known  Colonel  Cradock  in  the  East,  in  1827,  just  after 
the  Battle  of  Navarino,  we  renewed  acquaintance, 
and  I  was  talking  with  him  when  the  name  of  William 
Stewart  Rose  was  announced.     I  had  long  been  most 
anxious  to    meet   this  prince  of  humorists  and  of 
gentlemen.     Murray,  who  was  much  more  intimate 
with  him  than  with  Horace  Smith,  would  have  given 
me  a  letter ;  but  quite  recently  Rose  had  been  suffering 
a  bad  attack,  and  Murray  thought  him  too  ill  to 
receive  company  or  to  go  into  it.     In  a  very  few 
minutes  I  was  introduced  by  Horace,  and  in  the  course 
of  a  very  few  minutes  more  Rose  and  I  had  shaken 
hands  and  become  fast  friends.     He  had  travelled 
over  my  ground  in  the  East ;  and,  like  myself,  he  had 
resided  a  long  time  in  Italy,  and  had  quite  a  passion 
for   Italian  literature,  Italian  art,  and  for  nearly  all 
things  that  are  truly  Italian.     In  addition  to  these 
tastes  in  common,  he  had  even  more  than  my  love 
for    anecdotes,   tnemoires,   and    droll   stories   about 
beasts.     It  must  have  been  this  last  taste  which  led 
him  to  translate  the  witty,  but  very  licentious,  Abbate 
Casti's  "  Animali  Parlanti."     He  had  been  pleased 
with  some  things  in  my  first  book  of  travels*  in  Turkey, 
published    in    the    spring    of    1829  ;    chiefly,    as    I 
imagine,  because  they  had  recalled  the  memory  of 
earlier,  happier  days,  and  of  scenes  and  places  where 
he  had  himself  lingered.     He  paid  me  a  few  compli- 
ments, which  I  might  easily  have  returned  in  kind, 
as  at  that  time  I  knew  his  charming  letters  from  the 
North  of  Italy  almost  by  heart,  and  could  have  re- 
peated a  good  many  hundred  of  his  verses.     We  sat 
in  a  corner  nearly  the  whole  of  that  evening,  and  had 
many  a  chuckle,  and  not  a  few  hearty  laughs.     He 
inquired  after  all  the  oddities  he  had  known  in  the 
Levant,  and  told  some  good  stories  of  poor  old  Lady 
Liston,  wife  of  Sir  Robert,  our  very  old  Ambassador 
at  Stamboul;  who,  in  a  grand  diplomatic  gathering, 
had  styled  herself  *7fl  plus  ancienne  femme  publique 

*  "Constantinople  in  1828,"  2  vols.,  8vo.,  1829. 


CHAP.  IV]     DAN  HINVES,  HIS  VALET  31 

de  V Europe f''  and  who  always  talked   French  in  a 
style  quite  peculiar  to  herself. 

Among  others  who  called  on  me  the  next  morning 
was  Rose.  He  came  with  empressetnent  to  invite  me 
to  dinner  on  the  following  day,  and  to  tell  me  that  there 
would  always  be  macaroni  and  a  knife  and  fork  for 
me  at  three  precisely.  He  sat  with  me  a  long  time,  and 
again  a  good  deal  of  our  talk — 

"  Not  tuned  to  one  key. 
Ran  on  chase,  race,  horse,  mare,  fair,  bear,  and  monkey."* 

This  first  dinner  was  thoroughly  Italian,  in  the  best 
style  of  that  cuisine,  and  consequently  delicious  and 
easy  of  digestion.  I  thought  that  he  must  have  an 
Italian  cook.  "  No,"  said  Rose,  '*  this  is  all  done 
or  directed  by  a  thorough  John  Bull,  a  very  queer 
fellow  whom  I  caught  in  his  cub-age  in  the  New 
Forest.  By  the  way,  it  is  time  that  you  should  know 
Dan  Hinves,  my  valet,  cook,  factotum,  everything, 
who  has  travelled  with  me  wherever  I  have  travelled, 
and  has  been  constantly  with  me  these  last  thirty 
years  and  longer.  John  !  tell  Dan  to  step  up  and 
show  himself  1"  And  presently  in  trotted  Dan,  the 
never-to-be-forgotten,  real,  original  Dan  Hinves. 
He  was  a  shortish,  very  stout,  rubicund-faced,  strong- 
looking,  merry  man,  apparently  about  fifty  years  old. 
He  had  on  a  white  cotton  cap,  such  as  French  and 
Italian  cooks  always  wear;  a  coloured  chintz  jacket, 
such  as  is  worn  by  English  butlers ;  and  a  very  ample 
white  apron.  He  had  a  round,  twinkling  eye,  and 
his  whole  face  was  full  of  fun  and  drollery. 

"  Dan,"  said  his  master,  "  you  have  distinguished 
yourself  to-day.  That  timballo  di  tnaccheroni  was 
exquisite,  so  were  those  cutlets  aux  olives.  Mr. 
MacFarlane  here  is  a  connoisseur.  You  ought  to  feel 
proud  of  his  approbation  I"  Hinves  made  a  bow,  and 
a  short,  neat  speech,  in  which  the  Hampshire  dialect 

♦  This  Une  in  C.  M.'s  writing.  The  quotation  is  from  Rose's 
Epistle  to  J.  H.  Frere,  "  Rhymes,"  by  W.  S.  Rose,  Brighton,  1837. 
—Ed. 


32  WILLIAM  STEWART  ROSE     [chap,  iv 

and  accent  were  sufficiently  prononces.  Rose  kept 
him  in  the  room  for  a  few  minutes,  and  then  dismissed 
him,  chuckhng  with  a  joke.  What  amused  me  a 
great  deal  was  that  the  opening  of  the  address  to 
Hinves  was  appropriated  from  a  joke  I  had  told  him 
the  day  before. 

Old  M.  Leroi,  a  French  merchant  at  Smyrna,  was 
a  great  gourmet,  and  kept  a  female  Greek  cook, 
reputed  the  best  cook  in  Smyrna,  where  good  cooks 
were,  and  still  are,  exceedingly  rare.  Whenever  he 
had  a  dinner-party,  and  Katinka  did  well  and  pleased 
his  critical  palate,  he  called  her  into  the  dining-room 
and  thanked  her,  before  all  the  company,  in  these 
words,  "  Katinka,  ma  chere,  vous  vous  etes  bien  dis- 
tinguee  aujourd'hui  T^  Rose,  who  could  drink  very 
little  wine  himself,  produced  au  dessert  a  magnum  of 
old  hock,  the  very  best  Rudesheimer,  which  I  and  his 
two  other  guests.  Count  P.  and  Major  B.,  enjoyed  as 
we  ought.  "  It  is  very  old,"  said  Rose;  "  it  belonged 
to  my  father,  and  he  and  Mr.  Pitt  had  many  a  good 
booze  over  it — that  is,  when  Mr.  Pitt  could  be  seduced 
from  his  favourite  port.  I  have  still  a  good  quantity 
in  the  cellar.  Come  here  to  dinner  every  Sunday 
and  you  shall  have  a  magnum.  On  weekdays  you 
must  be  satisfied  with  port,  sherry,  and  tavel." 

From  this  time,  through  four  months,  I  was  with 
Rose  nearly  every  day,  dining  wdth  him  two  or  three 
times  in  the  week,  and  never  leaving  his  pleasant 
society  without  regret.  He  had  been  a  remarkably 
handsome  man ;  but,  rather  early  in  life,  a  paralytic 
attack  had  nearly  deprived  him  of  the  use  of  one  side, 
and  he  was  now  very  lame,  very  weak  in  the  limbs,  and 
subject  to  rather  frequent  attacks  of  a  painful  disorder. 
Yet  his  face  was  still  fine,  and  the  expression  of 
his  countenance  witty,  humorous,  and  benevolent. 
He  had  an  affectionate,  caressing  tone  of  voice,  and 
his  manners  were  perfect.  Disguise,  travesty  himself 
as  he  would,  there  was  never  any  possibility  of  taking 
Rose  for  anything  but  a  thorough  English  gentleman. 


CHAP.  IV]      DAN  HINVES,  HIS  VALET  33 

This  character,  indeed,  peeped  out  even  through  his 
buffoonery,  and  presided  over  all  his  jokes.  Never 
did  he  let  drop  a  word  that  could  offend  the  feelings 
of  any  of  hisiisteners. 

Dan  Hinves  and  I  soon  became  almost  as  thick  as 
Rose  and  myself.  One  particular  day,  after  dinner, 
when  Dan  had  again  been  called  up  and  thanked  in 
the  manner  of  M.  Leroi,  his  master  said,  "  You  seem 
to  be  pleased  and  amused  with  my  factotum;  shall 
I  tell  you  something  about  his  natural  history  ?" 
"  Andiamo  !  Rosa  senza  spina  /"  said  we;  and  off  he 
went,  not  at  score,  for  he  always  spoke  very  deliber- 
ately, but  into  the  very  pith  of  the  story. 

"  In  my  younger  days,  when  I  was  living,  building, 
and  moon-carving  at  Gundimore  in  the  New  Forest, 
I  was  sorely  tormented  by  valets.  I  tried  Italians, 
Germans,  Swiss;  and  could  never  get  a  right  one.  A 
Frenchman  turned  out  such  a  very  fine  gentleman 
that  I  discharged  him,  with  the  resolution  of  never 
having  anything  more  to  do  with  such  fine  people. 
I  was  looking  out  for  something  rustical,  young,  and 
rough,  when  one  day  as  I  was  riding  through  a  village 
at  the  edge  of  the  New  Forest,  I  heard  a  fellow  roaring 
like  a  bull,  and  on  looking  over  a  garden  wall,  I  saw 
a  man  belabouring  a  stubby  boy  with  a  stick.  *  Oh,* 
said  I, '  don't  hit  the  boy  so  hard  !  What  has  he  been 
doing  ?'  '  Doing,  sir  !*  said  the  gardener;  '  why,  sir, 
he  has  been  stealing  my  apples,  and  when  I  caught 
him  up  in  the  tree,  he  pelted  me  with  my  own  apples 
because  he  said  they  were  sour  !  Yes,  sir  !  pelted  me 
with  my  own  apples,  and  a  pretty  job  I  have  had  to 
get  him  down  from  the  apple-tree  !'  The  delinquent 
was  my  now  long-tried  and  faithful  henchman,  Mr. 
Dan  Hinves.  '  Hang  it  !'  thought  I ;  '  this  must  be  a 
lad  of  promise,  there  must  be  some  fun  in  him.'  I 
took  him  home  with  me,  sent  for  his  father,  and  took 
him  into  my  service  as  valet  that  very  afternoon. 
He  was  then  between  fifteen  and  sixteen  years  old, 
and  rough  and  ragged  enough  in  all  conscience. 


34  WILLIAM  STEWART  ROSE    [chap,  iv 

*'  He  had  evidently  eaten  a  good  many  sour  apples  in 
his  time,  and  cannot  have  been  much  accustomed  to 
good  fare,  for  though  his  face  was  puffed  and  chubby, 
he  was  very  flat  and  thin  in  the  barrel  and  about  the 
calves.  We  soon  got  him  into  condition,  and  as  he 
filled  up,  his  fun  and  drollery  began  to  ooze  out. 
His  lingo  was  scarcely  intelligible  to  ears  polite,  but 
we  soon  mended  that  also ;  or,  to  speak  more  correctly, 
we  somewhat  improved  it,  for  Dan  has  never  quite  lost 
his  Forest  vernacular,  and  I  should  be  sorry  if  he 
had,  for  his  Hampshire  terms  now  and  then  help  me  in 
my  etymological  studies.  He  could  read  a  little,  and 
I  got  him  a  village  schoolmaster  who  improved  his 
reading,  and  taught  him  writing  and  arithmetic. 
Since  then,  as  you  will  find,  b}^  living  so  much  among 
books  and  literary  people,  and  by  travelling  about  so 
much  with  me,  he  has  become  a  bit  of  a  literary  char- 
acter himself.  He  has  long  been  in  correspondence 
with  Walter  Scott,  who  sends  him  his  Scottish  novels 
as  they  appear ;  and  he  often  exchanges  a  letter  with 
John  Hookham  Frere  and  Mr.  Hallam.  You  can 
see,  in  his  room,  that  he  has  quite  a  library  of  books, 
these  books  being,  for  the  most  part,  presentation 
copies.  He  is  very  proud  of  his  extensive  acquaint- 
ance with  living  authors.  He  keeps  a  sort  of  diary 
about  them.  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  has  booked  you 
by  this  time.  Dan  was  certainly  a  bit  of  a  pickle  at 
first  starting.  He  had  frequent  fights  with  the  cook 
about  pudding,  and  combats  with  the  gardener  about 
apples  and  pears.  Besides  this,  he  had  a  pernicious 
tendency  to  quarrel  with  my  pet  goats,  four  fine  long- 
bearded  fellows  that  I  used  to  drive  in  a  light  chaise, 
and  which,  to  tell  the  truth  of  them,  were  about  as 
mischievous  as  Dan  himself.  To  cure  him  of  his 
pranks,  I  dressed  him  up  as  a  devil.  I  invented  a 
capital  costume  for  him,  and  got  it  made  up  by  an 
ingenious  tailor  and  an  enterprising  toyman  at 
Christchurch.  It  consisted  of  a  long  pair  of  black 
bull's  horns,  a  black,  very  ugly  mask,  with  nose  like 


CHAP.  IV]       DAN  HINVES  AS  DEVIL  35 

George  Cruikshank's,  and  a  long  red  tongue  hanging 
out  of  the  mouth,  of  a  dress  made  of  skins  and  black 
cloth,  which  sat  close  to  his  skin,  and  covered  him 
from  shoulder  to  hoof. 

"  We  took  a  deal  of  trouble  about  these  hoofs ;  they 
were,  of  course,  cloven;  the  colour  was  black,  picked 
out  with  fiery  red.  You  must  have  concluded  before 
this  that  Dan  had  a  tail  pendant  from  the  breech,  and 
a  splendid  tail  it  was — thick,  long,  tufted,  and  forked 
at  the  extremity.  I  was  rather  proud  of  that  tail; 
for,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  made  it  myself.  Well, 
until  Dan  got  out  of  his  cub-age,  whenever  he  mis- 
conducted himself  he  had  to  wear  that  demoniacal 
dress.  My  words  of  command  were  these,  '  Go  and 
be  devil  !  Go  and  stand  behind  the  door  until  further 
orders  !'  This  masquerade  and  this  whim  of  mine 
were  a  good  deal  talked  of,  and  soon  understood. 
But  before  this  came  about,  a  more  than  half-cracked 
neighbouring  squire  came  one  morning  to  pay  me  a 
visit;  he  rang  the  bell,  and  Dan,  who  had  been 
naughty  and  was  en  diable,  opened  the  door.  The 
squire  set  up  a  scream  of  horror  and  fright,  and  ran 
away  as  fast  as  his  legs  could  carry  him,  to  tell  the 
good  people  that  he  had  seen  the  devil  at  Mr.  Rose's, 
and  that  I  had  his  Satanic  Majesty  for  door-porter. 
I  could  tell  you  many  stories  about  this  crazy  squire. 
Like  myself,  he  belonged  to  the  Hampshire  Yeomanry 
— I  was  Captain  and  he  a  Lieutenant  in  that  warlike 
corps ;  and  I  remember  that  he  was  always  tumbling 
off  his  horse,  or  breaking  our  line,  or  riding  over  the 
trumpeter,  or  getting  into  some  other  scrape.  When 
all  the  Forest,  and  all  the  country  along  that  coast, 
were  ringing  with  alarms  of  invasion  and  reports  that 
Bony  was  coming,  he  said  to  me,  one  fine  hot  summer's 
day,  as  we  were  riding  home  from  exercise,  '  Rose, 
let  them  come  !  I  will  settle  them.  I  have  hit  upon 
such  a  plan  r  *  What  is  it  ?' asked  L  *  Listen,' said 
he;  'you  know  something  of  our  Forest  flies,  and 
how  they  sting  ?     Well,  I  have  bottled  a  pretty  good 


36  WILLIAM  STEWART  ROSE    [chap,  iv 

lot  already;  I  shall  bottle  more  as  my  people  catch 
them.  I  hope  soon  to  have  a  binful.'  '  I  see/  said 
I ;  'when  the  French  cavalry  land,  you  will  meet  them 
near  the  beach  and  uncork  your  bottles  ?'  '  Just  so/ 
replied  my  squire  exultingly,  '  and  I  should  like  to 
see  how  they  would  stand  it  I'  But  this  is  par 
parenthese.  Let  us  return  to  Hinves.  By  degrees 
Dan  developed  a  very  considerable  talent  for  cooking, 
as  well  as  for  booking.  This  he  Improved  in  the 
course  of  our  travels.  Barty  Frere  and  I  nearly 
lost  him  in  the  Troad.  We  were  fording  the  Sca- 
mander,  when  it  was  very  much  swollen  by  recent 
rains,  and  was  dashing  along  like  a  river  worthy  of 
its  name.  Dan  took  the  ford  rather  too  low  down; 
his  horse  lost  its  footing,  and  in  struggling  to  recover 
itself  it  threw  our  squire  out  of  his  saddle.  The 
current  carried  away  Dan,  who  bawled  like  a  Sancho 
Panza.  Luckily  for  us,  and  still  more  luckily  for 
him,  there  was  a  sand-bank  a  very  little  way  down 
the  river,  and  on  this  he  recovered  himself.  Frere 
wrote  some  doggerel  upon  the  incident,  which  began — 

" '  Goosey,  goosey  gander, 
Floating  down  Scamander.' 

A  day  or  two  after  this,  Dan  danced  a  menuet  de  la 
cour  with  a  stately  stork,  in  the  bazaar  of  the  town 
of  the  Dardanelles,  to  the  infinite  amusement  of 
a  number  of  grave,  turbaned  Turks  there  assembled. 
I  can't  say  he  much  enjoyed  his  travels  in  Turkey, 
or  his  stay  at  Constantinople.  He  thought  of  the 
natives  of  all  races  and  classes  as  Sir  John  Malcolm's 
sea-officer  thought  of  the  Ab3^ssinians :  '  As  for 
manners,  they  have  none,  and  their  customs  are 
very  disgusting.'  He  was  perfectly  horrified  one 
morning  at  seeing  three  heads,  without  their  bodies, 
lying  at  the  Seraglio  gate.  *  What  a  set  of  beasts 
are  these  Turks  !'  said  he;  '  they  are  always  cutting 
off  heads,  or  beating  poor  men's  feet  into  jellies 
with  their  bastinados  !     Oh,  Lord  !     Master,  do  let 


CHAP.  IV]    COLERIDGE  AND  HINVES  37 

us  get  out  of  this  I  Do  let  us  go  home  or  get  into 
some  Christian  country  at  least  !' 

"  But  for  the  language,  which  he  could  not  pick  up, 
he  would  have  been  very  happy  and  cosy  in  Italy. 
He  used  to  say,  '  I  can't  understand  how  English 
gentlemen  who  can  live  in  a  country  like  this,  and 
as  long  as  they  like,  should  go  scrambling  about 
Turkey  and  Greece,  certain  to  be  half-starved,  and 
eaten  up  by  vermin,  and  nearly  every  day  running 
the  risk  of  being  murdered.'  When,  after  our  long 
wanderings,  we  landed  in  England,  Dan's  joy  was 
most  enthusiastic;  he  capered  about  like  a  man 
demented  for  a  good  half-hour,  and  energetically 
declared  after  dinner  that  there  was  nothing  like 
English  beef-steaks  and  London  porter.  At  Gundi- 
more,  when  we  had  been  annoyed  by  a  shoal  of 
memoirs  written  by  people  who  were  nobodies, 
and  who  had  nothing  to  tell,  Barty  Frere  and  I 
set  Dan  to  write  his  autobiography.  He  took  a 
splendid  start,  made  a  most  splendid  beginning: 
'  My  name  is  Daniel  Hinves.  I  was  born  in  the 
parish  of  Christchurch,  by  the  New  Forest,  in  the 
county  of  Hampshire.  My  father  was  a  Church  of 
England  man,  but  my  mother  belonged  to  the 
Methodists'  connection.  Father  used  to  larrup  me 
because  I  did  not  go  regularly  to  church ;  and  mother 
used  to  slap  and  pinch  me  because  I  would  not  go 
regularly  to  meeting;  and  so,  between  the  two,  I  had 
rather  an  unhappy  life  of  it,  until  I  was  caught 
stealing  apples.'  Here  Dan  stopped.  He  had  begun 
in  too  high  a  key.  It  was  quite  impossible  to  keep 
this  up.     He  has  never  tried  again. 

"  Dan's  criticisms  on  some  of  the  writers  of  the 
day  are  rather  amusing.  What  do  you  think  he 
said  of  Coleridge,  who  had  been  staying  with  me  a 
week  or  two  at  Gundimore  ?  '  Master,  you  say  this 
Mr.  Coleridge  is  a  wonderful  man,  and  so  says  Mr. 
Frere,  and  so  say  all  of  you;  but  I  can't  make  him 
out  !     I  can  understand  Sir  Walter  Scott  perfectly ; 


38  WILLIAM  STEWART  ROSE    [chap,  iv 

I  can  understand  both  the  Mr.  Freres;  I  have  no 
difficulty  in  taking  in  what  Mr.  Gaily  Knight  says; 
Mr.  Hallam  talks  plain  common  sense  that  a  child 
may  understand ;  I  can  even  make  you  out,  my  master, 
pretty  well,  when  you  steer  clear  of  Latin  and  Greek 
and  foreign  lingos,  but  I  can  make  nothing,  nothing 
at  all,  of  Mr.  Coleridge.  Still,  as  you  all  say  so, 
Mr.  Coleridge  must  be  a  wonderfully  clever  man — 
but  what  a  pity  it  is  he  talks  such  a  deal  of  non- 
sense I'"* 

At  this  time  Rose  was  finishing  the  last  cantos 
of  his  version  of  the  "  Orlando  Furioso,"  and  was 
casting  about  him  for  some  fresh  literary  occupation. 
Though  so  frequently  ill,  he  could  not  be  idle.  He 
had  kept  up  his  Greek  well.  One  morning,  on  going 
into  his  study,  I  found  him  declaiming  aloud,  ore 
rotundo,  one  of  Homer's  battles.  "  Ah,"  said  he, 
"  you  have  caught  me  at  it  !  Your  friend,  and  my 
friend  and  physician.  Dr.  Todd,  recommends  reading 
aloud  as  capital  exercise  for  a  man  who  cannot  take 
much  exercise,  and  is  obliged  to  lead  a  sedentary 
life.     Now,  I  prefer  reading  Greek,  because  it  has 

*  In  the  notes  to  "  Rhymes,  by  William  Stewart  Rose,  1837," 
it  is  recorded  that  a  copy  of  "  Christabel  "  was  given  by  Coleridge 
to  Hinves,  with  the  following  letter  on  the  fly-leaf : 

"  Dear  Hinves, — Till  this  book  is  concluded,  and  with  it 
'  Gundimore,'  a  poem  by  the  same  author,  accept  of  this  corrected 
copy  of  'Christabel,'  as  a  small  token  of  regard,  yet  such  a  testi- 
monial as  /  would  not  pay  to  one  I  did  not  esteem,  though  he 
were  an  emperor.  Be  assured,  I  will  send  you  for  your  private 
library  every  work  I  have  published  (if  there  be  any  to  be  had), 
and  whatever  I  shall  publish.  Keep  steady  to  the  faith.  If  the 
fountain-head  be  always  full,  the  stream  cannot  be  long  empty. — 
Yours  sincerely,  S.  T.  Coleridge. 

"MuDiFORD,  11th  Nov.,  1816." 

Rose  adds:  "With  respect  to  the  phrase  '  keep  steady  to  the 
faith,'  I  imagine  he  was  cautioning  him  he  was  addressing  against 
Foscolo's  supposed  licence  in  religious  opinions.  '  Gundimore  ' 
was  never  completed,  nor  (I  believe)  ever  begun.  I  will,  how- 
ever, stoop  to  pick  up  one  of  the  morsels  that  was  destined  to 
enter  into  its  composition.  Walking  with  him  upon  the  beach, 
a  long  wave  came  rolling  in,  and  broke  at  our  feet.  *  That  wave  ' 
(said  he)  '  seems  to  me  like  a  world's  embrace,  and  I  shall  introduce 
it  into  '  Gundimore.*  " 


CHAP.  IV]         HINVES  AND  REFORM  39 

so  much  more  sound  and  volume  in  it  than  any 
other  language  that  I  know.  I  mean  to  spout 
Greek  for  an  hour  every  morning,  before  taking 
my  bath."     And  on  he  went  with  his  Homeric  battle. 

One  very  cold  winter  day,  as  Rose,  leaning  on 
Dan's  arm,  was  walking  through  one  of  the  inferior 
streets  of  Brighton,  his  eye  and  fancy  were  struck 
by  a  very  light  drab  greatcoat,  hanging  out  at  the 
door  of  a  common  slop-shop.  He  stopped,  felt  it, 
and  otherwise  examined  it.  "  Dan,"  said  he,  "  this 
is  a  sensible  coat,  this  is  really  a  great  coat.  Your 
fashionable  tailors  make  little  greatcoats  with  thin, 
flimsy  cloth;  here  there  is  plenty  of  substance;  this 
is  a  coat  to  keep  one  warm.  Dan,  I  have  a  great 
mind  to  buy  it,  and  wear  it  home."  "  Master," 
said  the  henchman,  "  if  you  do  I  will  leave  you  here, 
and  send  John  for  you.  I  hope  I  am  not  too  proud, 
but  hang  me  if  I  can  be  seen  walking  through  the 
streets  with  such  a  greatcoat  !  Why,  it  is  what  the 
Charlies  used  to  wear  !  It  is  fit  only  for  a  watchman 
or  a  pauper."     Rose  gave  up  the  idea  of  purchase. 

While  the  Reform  Bill  tempest  was  raging  so 
furiously,  and  was  carrying  so  many  anxieties  and 
fears  into  so  many  hearts.  Rose  became  greatly 
alarmed,  for  he  held  a  patent,  and  almost  sinecure 
place ;  and  with  the  exception  of  what  he  derived  from 
it,  he  had  but  little  income  or  property.  For  a 
long  time  he  felt  quite  sure  that  the  reformers  would 
begin  with  him  by  abolishing  his  place,  as  he  was  a 
Tory,  and  the  brother  of  a  warm  Tor}^  and  the  son 
of  a  conspicuous  Tory  who  had  been  the  bosom 
friend  of  Mr.  Pitt,  the  bete  noire  of  the  Whigs  and 
Radicals.  But  even  when  he  most  felt  this  anxiety, 
and  the  dread  of  a  violent  political  change,  he  could 
often  make  his  joke  about  it.  "  Dan,"  said  he  one 
day  after  dinner,  "  the  world  is  to  be  turned  topsy- 
turvy; the  great  are  to  be  made  small,  the  small 
great;  the  rich  are  to  be  made  poor,  the  poor  rich; 
the  master  is  to  be   turned   into   the  servant,   the 


40  WILLIAM  STEWART  ROSE     [chap,  iv 

servant  into  the  master.  Dan,  when  this  comes  off, 
will  you  hire  me?"  "Oh  Lord,  no  !"  replied  Dan. 
"  Oh  dear,  no,  sir;  I  knows  you  too  well  !"  I  never 
saw  him  wanting  in  real  respect,  and  I  believe  he  ^ 

had  a  wonderful  admiration  of  his  master,  and  that 
he  really  loved  and  respected  him;  but  Dan  had 
been  so  many  years  with  him,  and  for  so  great  a 
period  of  that  time  Rose  had  been  so  entirely  de- 
pendent on  his  services,  that  it  was  not  at  all  surpris- 
ing that  the  henchman  should  be  somewhat  familiar 
with  him.  At  this  time  I  could  not  conceive  what 
m.y  friend  could  possibly  have  done  without  his 
Hinves. 

Though  most  scrupulous  as  to  cleanliness.  Rose, 
at  one  time  a  dandy  and  a  companion  of  Brummell, 
Sir  Harry  Mildmay,  and  that  set,  had  become  care- 
less and  even  slovenly  in  his  dress.  He  cared  not 
what  coat  he  wore,  nor  what  hat  he  put  on.  Dan, 
at  times,  would  tell  him  that  he  looked  like  an  old 
clothesman.  "  You  are  not  going  out  that  figure,'* 
said  he  one  morning,  *'  with  those  old  trousers  that 
are  too  short  for  your  legs,  with  the  tie  of  your 
cravat  turned  round  to  the  back  of  your  neck,  and 
with  Mr.  M.'s  snuff  sticking  to  your  waistcoat  !" 

To  change  the  nether  garment  was  too  serious 
an  operation,  he  being  so  very  lame  on  all  one  side, 
but  he  submitted  to  be  brushed,  and  to  have  his 
cravat  set  right. 

At  another  time  Dan  came  to  me  with  a  very 
serious  and  imxploring  face.  "  I  wish,"  said  he, 
'*  that  you  would  persuade  my  master  to  buy  a  new 
hat.  He  has  been  wearing  that  tile  these  three  years, 
until  it  has  neither  nap  nor  shape  !"  One  summer 
Rose  started  a  white  hat,  with  broad  brims  that  were 
green  underneath.  It  certainly  was  an  ugly,  shock- 
ing bad  hat,  and  shabby-looking  from  the  first. 
Hinves  always  maintained  that  his  master  and  his 
donkey-boy  had  bought  it  second-hand  at  the  slop- 
shop where  he  had  been    enamoured   of   the  drab 


CHAP.  IV]     ROGERS'  HATRED  OF  DOGS  41 

greatcoat.  When  reproduced  for  a  second  summer's 
wear,  it  was  a  sight  to  see  !  Hinves  protested,  and 
we  all  protested.  What  in  the  end  made  him  dis- 
card that  head-covering  was  my  remark  that  a  white 
hat  was  a  symbol  of  Radicalism.  "  Hang  it,"  said 
Rose,  "  so  it  is  I  Orator  Hunt  always  wore  a  white 
hat — strange  that  I  should  never  have  thought  of 
that  !  Hinves,  take  this  chapeau  and  give  it  aw^ay 
immediately  to  some  poor  man."  "  I  hardly  know 
the  poor  man  who  will  thank  you  for  it  !"  replied 
Hinves. 

Rose  kept  a  French  poodle,  an  improper  thing 
for  any  English  gentleman,  being  a  sportsman,  to 
do.  But,  as  I  once  kept  a  poodle  myself,  at  Naples, 
and  spent  a  mint  of  money  in  having  his  hinder- 
quarters  clean-shaved  twice  a  week,  I  must  not  raise 
a  quarrel  on  this  account.  Then,  again,  Rose's 
dog  was  maintained  for  the  delectation  of  an  Italian 
lady,  an  inmate  of  his  house.  The  Italian  name 
"  Furbo,''  in  our  vernacular,  would  signify  rogue  or 
scamp,  and  certainly  poor  Furbo  was  a  bit  of  a 
scamp  to  those  who  did  not  like  his  species.  Old 
Sam  Rogers  hated  dogs,  and  consequently  Furbo 
declared  an  eternal  enmity  against  the  banker  poet. 
Sydney  Smith — the  parson,  not  the  Admiral — said 
that  if  you  venture  to  visit  un  homme  de  lettres  at 
Paris,  you  will  be  certain  to  have  your  ankles  or 
calves  assailed  by  a  little  waspish  dog.  Furbo, 
generally  in  Rose's  study,  had  not  so  universal  an 
appetite  for  human  flesh,  but  he  hated  Rogers  with 
an  intensity  of  canine  hatred,  and  old  Sam  could 
hardly  gain  access  to  the  studio  without  the  convoy 
of  Dan  Hinves  or  of  some  other  person  on  better 
terms  w^ith  the  poodle.  I  well  remember  that  one 
morning  he  halted  in  my  rear  for  a  good  ten  minutes 
while  I  pacified  Furbo.  On  returning  from  that 
morning  visit,  the  poet  said  in  his  blandest  manner, 
"  I  wonder  that  some  attached,  confidential  friend 
of  Rose's  doesn't  poison  that  beast  of  a  poodle  that 


42  WILLIAM  STEWART  ROSE    [chap,  iv 

is  always  running  at  one's  legs,  and  is  always  making 
such  a  disgusting  barking  !"  I  could  not  tell  the 
old  man  that  the  dog  never  ran  at  Mr.  Hallam,  nor 
at  Mr.  B.  Frere,  nor  at  me,  nor  at  many  others  who 
loved  dogs;  but  I  said  that  to  take  off  poor  Furbo 
would  be  to  abridge  the  fun  and  the  comfort  of  the 
house.  Rogers  left  me  at  the  corner  of  a  street 
in  very  ill-humour.  I  have  no  doubt  that  Furbo, 
on  some  occasions,  was  not  much  of  a  favourite 
with  Rose's  guests.  If  there  was  an  evening  party, 
the  dog,  after  bow-wowing  at  those  he  did  not  like, 
and  pestering  with  caresses  those  whom  he  did  like, 
would  sprawl  out  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  bark 
loudly  when  the  music,  or  the  accentuation  or  some- 
thing else  in  the  talk,  did  not  please  him.  Rose 
used  to  say,  "  I  really  believe  that  dog  thinks  that 
we  are  all  met  here  this  evening  on  his  account,  and 
to  amuse  him.  Only  look  at  the  toss  of  his  snout 
and  the  wag  of  his  tail  !" 

One  quarrel  I  certainly  had  with  poor  Furbo, 
who  must  have  gone  to  the  bow-wows  years  ago. 
I  was  listening  with  all  my  ears  and  with  all  my 
attention  to  one  of  Rose's  stories  about  monkeys, 
and  poodle,  without  the  exertion  of  a  spring,  stole 
from  my  plate  the  wing  of  a  delicious  partridge. 
There  was  a  jealousy  between  Townsend's  ''  King 
Charles  "  and  the  French  dog,  but  on  the  whole  the 
two,  after  belligerency,  managed  matters  pretty  w^ell, 
and  got  up  a  canine  entente  cordiale.  But  how 
Rogers  did  hate  poor  Furbo  !  More  than  a  year 
after,  he  asked  me  whether  that  beast  were  living  or 
dead.  I  rather  think  that  Rose,  with  all  his  admira- 
tion for  the  poet,  an  admiration  which  he  frequently 
expressed,  was  not  altogether  unhappy  at  seeing 
the  poodle  charge  up  to  old  Sam's  legs,  or  to  hear 
him  vociferate  at  his  approach.  That  which  vexed 
Rose  was  that  he  had  never  been  able  to  establish 
a  perfect  harmony,  or  even  anything  like  sympathy, 
between  Furbo  and  his  little  jackass,  Velluti. 


CHAP.  IV]        HIS  TASTE  IN  SNUFF  43 

There  was  one  other  man  that  Furbo  persecuted, 
Terrick  Hamilton,  ci-devant  Oriental  secretary  at 
Constantinople,  translator  of  "Antar,"  a  very  worthy 
man,  a  considerable  scholar,  and  the  greatest  bore 
then  in  existence.  Poor  Rose  used  to  say  that  the 
dog  showed  more  than  a  doggish  instinct,  that  Furbo 
knew  how  wearisome  Terrick  was,  and  did  all  that 
he  could  to  prevent  his  entrance  and  to  promote 
his  exit.  We  engaged  to  write  an  epitaph  for  poor 
Furbo  in  Italian,  but  I  broke  down  in  the  second  or 
third  line,  and  Rose  never  did  a  bit  of  his  part,  his 
feelings  being  too  much  hurt  by  the  anticipation. 
Yet  dear  Rose  could  never  bear  to  have  the  poodle 
following  him  out  of  doors,  for  it  was  so  foreign- 
looking  and  French-like.     Pax  tibi  Furbel 

When  Rose  was  in  a  condition  to  perform  the  duties 
of  his  place  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  had  a 
lodging,  for  the  Parhamentary  season,  somewhere 
down  in  Westminster,  near  the  House.  Growing 
weary  of  the  same  rooms,  and  fancying  he  would 
have  more  air  on  the  second  floor  than  on  the  first, 
on  leaving  town  at  the  end  of  the  season  he  arranged 
with  his  landlady  that  he  should  be  transferred 
to  the  upstairs  apartment.  When  Parhament  re- 
assembled, he  returned  to  town,  and  to  the  house 
where  he  had  been  living  for  some  years.  With 
his  usual  obliviousness,  he  bolted  into  the  first 
floor  which  he  had  long  occupied,  and  there,  to  his 
astonishment,  he  found  a  stout,  elderly,  rubicund, 
wigged  gentleman  in  black,  sitting  with  his  feet  on 
the  fender.  "  Sir,"  said  he,  "  may  I  ask  to  what  I 
am  indebted  for  the  pleasure  of  this  visit  ?"  "  Damn 
it,  sir  1"  said  the  rubicund  old  gentleman;  "  I  think 
it  is  for  me  to  put  that  question  !"  Rose  looked 
about  the  room,  saw  that  his  books,  his  library 
table,  his  easy-chair,  were  all  absent,  remembered 
that  he  had  bargained  to  change  his  degree  of  alti- 
tude, blushed,  stammered  some  excuse,  bolted  out 
of  the  room,  and  went  upstairs,  au  second. 


44  WILLIAM  STEWART  ROSE     [chap,  iv 

Although  he  could  not  take  much  of  it,  Rose  very 
much  enjoyed  a  pinch  of  good,  wholesome,  unso- 
phisticated snuff,  and  would  very  often  help  me  to 
empty  my  box;  but  he  had  a  most  perfect  horror 
of  artificial  mixtures  and  scented  snuffs,  like  that 
called  the  **  Prince's  Mixture."  He  used  to  damn 
them  and  call  them  "  snuffs  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah," 

and  conceived  a  repugnance  to  Colonel because 

he  took  them.  He  had  a  theory  of  his  own  about 
stenches.  '*  I  cannot  help  fancying,"  said  he,  "  that 
stinks  might  be  harmonized,  or  that  they  might  be 
introduced,  with  good  effect,  as  discords  are  in 
music;  nor  am  I  quite  sure  that  a  Rossini  or  a 
Beethoven,  turning  their  attention  this  way,  might 
not  make  a  very  pleasant  tune  of  stenches.  Think 
of  this,  and  when  you  go  to  London,  talk  of  it  to 
the  musicians  and  chemists,  and  to  all  the  philo- 
sophers you  meet."  His  sense  of  smell  was  most 
acute — painfully  so.  I  told  him  of  a  family  who 
were  utterly  devoid  of  that  sense,  as  many  persons 
are.  **  Lucky  people!"  said  he;  "I  can  smell  a 
stink  a  mile  off,  and  I  am  afraid  that  for  one  *  in 
populous  cities  pent  '  there  are  rather  more  stenches 
than  sweet  odours.  Upon  the  breezy  downs,  or 
in  the  garden  at  the  parson's  nest,  it  is  different; 
but  only  smell  the  by-streets  of  this  Brighton,  and 
Brighton  is  pure  compared  with  most  towns  !  We 
English  boast  of  our  neatness  and  cleanliness,  but, 
as  yet,  we  are  very  far  from  being  a  cleanly  people. 
Stir  up  your  friend,  William  Mackinnon,  who  is 
waging  war  on  smoky  chimneys — stir  him  up,  rouse 
and  excite  him  on  the  grand  subject  of  cesspools 
and  drains  !  There  is  an  immortality  to  be  gained 
in  that  direction. 

**  As  a  Highlander,  you  must  remember  the  story 
of  the  first  milestones,  and  *  God  bless  the  Duke  of 
Argyll  !'  Well,  I,  for  one,  would  cry,  *  God  bless  the 
Laird  of  Skye  !'  if  he  could  only  relieve  my  nose 
from  some  of  its  acute  sufferings." 


CHAPTER  V 

SAMUEL  ROGERS 

I  BELIEVE  that  for  a  time  there  was  something  very- 
like  a  feud  between  those  two  Whig  wits,  Samuel 
Rogers  and  Sydney  Smith,  and  that  there  was 
never  very  much  cordiality  in  their  friendship.  The 
parson  had  forestalled  the  banker  in  some  bons 
motSy  and  old  Sam  was  exceedingly  jealous  of  other 
men's  success  in  society,  and  was  always  so  peevish 
and  irritable.  I  have  heard  him  say  exceedingly 
ill-natured  things  of  the  author  of  the  "  Plymley 
Letters."  For  example,  he  one  night  told  Count 
Pecchio,  myself,  and  two  or  three  others,  that  Sydney's 
father  was  a  bum-bailiff  by  profession,  and  a  very 
low  fellow.  On  reporting  this  to  W.  S.  Rose,  he 
said:  "  That  is  so  like  Rogers  !  He  knows  as  well 
as  I  do  that  Sydney's  father  was  a  gentleman,  but 
he  fancied  that  you  might  not  know  this,  and  so 
take  his  fib  for  a  fact." 

Rogers  had  brought  out  another  most  choice  and 
costly  edition  of  his  poems,  in  which  were  inserted 
several  new  pieces.  The  book  was  lying  on  the 
drawing-room  table,  and  among  others  Sydney  took 
it  up.  "What's  this?"  cried  he  with  a  chuckle. 
"  What's  this  ?  '  Lines  written  at  Paestum  '  ?  Why, 
here  is  a  poem  of  some  two  hundred  lines  I  If 
written  at  Paestum  Rogers  must  have  stayed  a  tre- 
mendously long  time  in  that  bare  and  very  unhealthy 
place  1"  Mr.  Hallam  said  that  W.  S.  Rose  was  there 
with  him.  The  wit  in  orders  turned  to  Rose,  and 
asked  how  long  he  and  Rogers  had  stayed  at  Paestum  ? 

45  5 


46  SAMUEL  ROGERS  [chap,  v 

Collecting  his  thoughts,  which  were  rather  apt  to 
go  wool-gathering,  Rose  said  that  what  with  the  time 
employed  in  examining  the  three  temples  and  the 
ancient  gateway,  and  with  that  employed  in  re- 
freshing the  horses  and  themselves,  they  might  have 
been  some  four  or  five  hours  at  the  spot.  "  Then," 
said  Sydney,  "  these  lines  could  not  have  been  written 
at  Paestum,  and  Rogers  has  been  fibbing;  for  we 
all  know  that  when  he  is  dehvered  of  a  single  couplet, 
straw  is  spread  in  St.  James's  Place,  and  his  friends 
call  with  anxious  inquiries,  and  are  told  that  he  is 
as  well  as  can  be  expected  after  his  labour." 

In  good  humour,  in  good  temper,  and  in  readiness 
of  real  wit,  I  should  say  that  the  parson  was  worth 
twenty  of  the  banker.  Rogers  could  bear  neither 
children  nor  dogs;  Smith  was  very  fond  of  both,  as 
every  good-natured  man  must  be.  I  have  seen 
children,  as  well  as  dogs,  resent  old  Sam's  unkind 
antipathies,  for  both  know  by  instinct  those  who  Hke 
and  those  who  dislike  them.  I  have  often  wondered 
how  the  poet's  calves  could  be  safe  in  walking  up 
the  Haymarket. 

When  the  author  of  "  Meditations  Poetiques  "  came 
over  to  London,  Prince  Talleyrand,  then  Ambassador, 
invited,  among  other  English  poets,  the  Bard  of 
Memory  to  meet  him.  The  two  bards  sat  dov/n  to 
dinner  side  by  side,  but  did  not  at  all  cotton.  As 
Lamartine  was,  as  yet,  a  scarcely  converted  Carlist 
and  Legitimist,  and  was  all  for  Royalty,  Authority, 
and  aristocratical  forms  of  government,  he  could 
not  have  been  in  good  odour  at  Holland  House;  and 
as  Rogers  took  his  cue  from  that  Tabernacle,  it  may 
be  supposed  that  he  was  not  very  cordial  with  his 
brother-poet.  At  a  jerk,  he  asked  Lamartine  if 
he  knew  B^ranger.  "  No,  sir  !"  said  Lamartine. 
"  And  I  never  would  know  or  associate  with  a  man 
of  his  revolutionary,  republican  principles  !  I  would 
rather  walk  five  miles  out  of  the  way  than  meet 
such  a  man."     "  And   I,"  said  Sam,  "  would  walk 


CHAP,  v]       MEETING  WITH  LAMARTINE         47 

ten  miles,  even  through  this  wet  night,  to  meet  and 
shake  hands  with  the  greatest  poet  of  modern  France !" 

Now,  considering  that  Lamartine  confidently  held 
himself  to  be  by  far  the  greatest  poet  then  in  the 
world,  this  was  rather  sharp  and  hard  of  Rogers. 
But,  as  regards  Lamartine's  subsequent  political 
gyrations,  this  little  anecdote  is  worth  preserving. 
The  two  poets  did  not  fight,  but  up  in  the  drawing- 
room  they  got  into  opposite,  if  not  antagonistic, 
corners.  I  heard  Rogers  himself  tell  the  story  by 
dear  Rose's  fireside  at  Brighton;  and  such  was  his 
obtuseness  in  certain  things  that  he  did  not  seem 
in  the  least  aware  that  he  had  offered  an  affront  to 
Lamartine. 

When  a  man  once  gets  an  established  reputation 
as  a  sayer  of  smart  things,  it  is  astounding  what 
platitudes  he  may  emit,  with  the  certainty  that 
they  will  be  taken  up  and  cried  over  half  the  town. 
There  are  always  so  many  who  cannot  discriminate 
betw^een  a  good  joke  and  a  bad  one,  and  who  are 
always  so  glad  to  repeat  somebody's  "  last."  In 
former  days  there  was  a  certain  friend,  whom  I  will 
not  denote  even  by  initials,  who  had  this  failing  to 
excess.  On  arriving  at  a  dinner  party,  he  said, 
before  he  could  sit  down,  "  Have  you  heard  old 
Sam  Rogers'  last  ?"  We  had  not.  "  Well,  I  had 
it  from  him  yesterday  morning  at  breakfast.  *  I 
hear,'  said  the  poet,  '  that  they  are  talking  of  erect- 
ing a  statue  to  Tommy  Campbell  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  and  of  setting  it  up  on  a  high  and  firm 
pedestal.  Now  you  and  I  and  all  the  town  know 
that  for  the  last  fifteen  3^ears  of  his  life  Tommy  was 
seldom  able  to  stand  steadily  on  his  own  feet.'  " 

The  friend  laughed  at  his  own  repetition ;  but  the 
jest  did  not  find  favour  with  us.  We  thought  it 
as  dull  as  it  was  uncharitable.  Yet  I  believe  that 
Rogers  had  attended  Campbell's  funeral  in  the 
Abbey,  and  that  he  had  begun  to  write  some  pathetic 
verses  on  it. 


48  SAMUEL  ROGERS  [chap,  v 

The  old  poet  was  exceedingly  fastidious  and  critical 
about  dinners,  cooking,  laying  out  a  table,  and 
waiting ;  as  indeed  he  was  about  everything  else  that 
came  home  to  him,  or  in  any  way  concerned  himself. 
There  was  a  fat,  strutting,  pompous  rector  and 
schoolmaster  at  Brighton,  who  took  it  into  his  head 
to  give  occasionally  a  grand,  crowded,  full-dress 
dinner  party,  without  having  either  the  proper 
means  or  appliances  or  the  good  taste  and  substantial 
knowledge  requisite  to  the  direction  of  such  affairs.  jj 

One  morning,  at  Rose's,  the  banker-poet  told  us 
that  he  had  been  invited  to  one  of  these  banquets; 
and  he  seemed  to  think  the  rector  had  taken  a  great 
liberty  in  inviting  him.  "  Shall  you  go  ?"  said 
Rose.  **  I  suppose  I  must,"  said  Rogers,  "  for  this 
is  the  third  time  of  asking." 

We  met  him  on  the  Steyne  the  day  after  the  feast. 
'*  Well,  Rogers,"  said  Rose,  "  how  did  it  come  off?" 
"Hem!  Hum!"  "Had  you  a  good  dinner?" 
"  No  !"  "  Had  you  good  wines  ?"  "  No  !"  "  Had 
you  good  company?"  "No!"  "Then  what  had 
you  ?"  ''  Why,"  said  old  Sam,  slightly  elevating 
his  nostrils,  and  speaking  slowly  and  emphatically, 
"  I  will  tell  you  what  we  had.  We  had  nine  red-faced 
bumpkins  dressed  out  as  footmen  to  wait  at  table, 
and  every  clod-pole  of  them  had  a  pair  of  scorching 
scarlet  red  plush  breeches,  a  pair  of  thick,  coarse 
white  cotton  gloves,  and  a  napkin  under  his  arm 
as  big  as  a  breakfast-tablecloth.  Something  more 
I  had  to  my  own  private  account.  I  had  some  soup 
poured  down  the  nape  of  my  neck  by  one  of  the 
parson's  masquerading  ploughboys  !"  The  author 
of  the  "  Pleasures  of  Memory  "  would  not  soon  forget, 
or  cease  to  talk  about,  the  rector's  grand  dinner. 
His  wrath,  his  spite,  in  this  brief  description  of  it, 
were  very  amusing.  The  reverend  rector,  as  was  his 
custom,  inserted  a  list  of  his  guests  in  the  "  Fashion- 
able Intelligence  "  of  a  Brighton  newspaper,  taking 
care  to  put  the  name  of  the  distinguished  poet  at  the 


CHAP,  v]    COLERIDGE  AND  LORD  WARD       49 

head  of  the  hst,  and  above  the  name  of  some  un- 
distinguished, unknown  baronet. 

I  have  often  remarked  that  the  EngHsh  are  the 
only  people  that  advertise  their  own  hospitalities 
in  weekly  newspapers.  In  this  instance,  I  rather 
wished  that  the  advertiser  could  hear  what  one  of 
his  guests  said  of  the  dinner.  Rogers'  account 
might  have  done  the  rector  moral  and  spiritual 
good,  by  rebuking  his  pomposity,  and  by  wounding 
his  conceit  and  pride.  Yet  I  am  not  sure:  "  a  fool 
at  sixty  is  a  fool  indeed,"  and  likely  to  remain  so 
through  the  remainder  of  his  days. 


SAMUEL  TAYLOR  COLERIDGE 

Lord  Ward,  like  all  or  most  men  of  intellect  and 
taste,  liked  to  know  all  his  contemporaries  who  were 
distinguished  by  their  taste  or  genius.  Moving  in  the 
society  to  which  he  belonged,  and  being  a  frequent 
looker-in  at  John  Murray's,  he  of  course  knew  all  the 
literary  men  who  were  worth  knowing ;  but  poor  Cole- 
ridge for  many  years  of  his  life  was  very  much  of  a 
recluse,  being  perched  up  on  the  Highgate  fork  of  the 
London  bi-forked  Parnassus,  and  him  his  lordship  had 
never  met.  He  expressed  his  regret  to  Lord  Dover, 
who  arranged  a  meeting  at  a  very  quiet,  small  dinner 
party,  providing — a  rather  necessary  provision — for 
Coleridge's  descent  to  Whitehall,  and  for  his  return 
to  Highgate.  The  philosopher  and  bard  arrived,  with 
his  laudanum  bottle  in  his  pocket,  ate  very  little 
dinner,  sipped  a  glass  or  two  of  wine,  took  another 
glass  suspected  to  have  been  nearly  all  diluted 
laudanum,  and  then  went  off  at  score  into  a  mono- 
logue which  lasted  the  remainder  of  the  dinner,  the 
whole  of  the  dessert,  and  for  nearly  an  hour  after. 
Nobody  interrupted  him,  as  nobody  could  have  cut 
across  his  torrent  of  talk  without  being  washed  away. 
Lord  Dover,  who  had  had  former  experience,  seemed 


so  SAMUEL  COLERIDGE  [chap,  v 

to  enjoy  it  all;  but  not  so  the  impatient,  irritable 
Lord  Ward;  he  liked  to  talk  himself,  and  no  man 
could  better  take  his  share  at  that  exercise.  As  he 
took  a  hasty  departure,  he  said:  "Well!  I  have 
heard  of  the  sumnium  bonum  before,  and  now  I  know 
what  is  the  summum  bore-em  /" 

I  never  could  boast  of  a  surplus  stock  of  patience ; 
I  never  could  have  understood  the  half  of  Coleridge's 
ultra-German,  transcendental  philosophy,  but  I  could 
find  high  poetry  in  it,  and  could  have  listened  to  it — 
in  the  winter  season  when  nights  are  long — from 
sunset  till  midnight.  I  met  him  but  seldom,  and 
then  not  in  his  best  days — far  from  that;  but  each 
time  I  was  astonished  and  delighted  while  I  was 
with  him,  and  left  him  with  a  perhaps  unpleasant 
bewilderment  or  swimming  of  the  head,  but  with  an 
innermost  persuasion  that  I  had  been,  not  talking 
with,  but  hearing  talk,  a  wondrous  man.  My  friend 
G.  L.  Craik,  who  saw  him  more  frequently,  and  who 
was  incomparably  more  of  a  metaphysician  than  I, 
has  told  me  that  he  always  left  Coleridge  with  the 
same  impression.  The  awful  thing  was  to  hear  a 
second  or  third  hand  repetition  of  Coleridge's  theories 
and  splendid  dreams.  Those  from  poor,  kind, 
thoroughly  good — at  least  as  far  as  regarded  Coleridge 
— Mr.  Gillman,  the  medical  practitioner  at  Highgate, 
in  whose  house  the  philosopher  and  bard  lived  for 
so  many  years,  and  in  whose  house  he  died,  were 
almost  enough  to  make  one  jump  out  of  the  window, 
or  to  cry  out,  with  Lord  Ward,  summum  bore-em  I 
Nor  do  I  think  that  the  matter  came  very  much 
mended  from  the  lips  of  Coleridge's  bosom  friend, 
and  for  a  long  time  my  near  neighbour,  Joseph 
Green,  the  eminent  surgeon  and  pre-eminent  German 
scholar  and  metaphysician,  and  the  man  whom 
Coleridge  appointed  to  be  his  chief  literary  executor. 

I  intend  to  return  to  the  subject  of  the  illustrious 
Coleridge — and  illustrious  he  was  in  spite  of  every 
drawback — but  I  have  broken  many  an  intention,  and 


CHAP,  v]     KINDNESS  TO  YOUNG  MEN  51 

life  is,  at  fifty-seven,  and  in  a  condition  of  infirmity, 
uncertain ;  therefore  I  would  fain  enter  a  little  record 
here.  Than  Coleridge,  no  distinguished  man,  no 
eminent  veteran  in  literature,  could  be  kinder  to 
the  young,  struggling  aspirant,  and  none  could  take 
more  diligent  interest  in  putting  young  men  in  the 
right  way  in  matters  of  belief.  He  was  the  better 
qualified  for  the  last-named  oflfice  from  having  himself 
commenced  life  as  a  free-thinker,  a  Deist,  a  Socinian, 
and  a  Unitarian. 

His  discourse  was  best  described  by  Stewart  Rose, 
who  called  it  "  rapt  talk."  1 

"  And  these  *  ribbed  sands  '  was  Coleridge  pleased  to  face, 
While  ebbing  seas  have  hummed  a  rolling  bass 
To  his  rapt  talk." 

W.  S.  Rose:  Rhymes,  1837. 


CHAPTER  VI 

HARTLEY  COLERIDGE 

It  was  on  a  glorious  autumnal  evening,  late  in  October, 
1838,  that  I  drove  from  Mr.  Wordsworth's  at  Rydal 
Mount  dowTi  to  the  village  of  Grasmere,  following 
the  shore  of  that  beautiful  little  lake,  which   was 
shining  in  the  setting  sun  like  a  gilded  mirror  with  a 
veil  or  crape  of  amber  and  rose  colours  spread  over 
it.     I  very  soon  reached  the  church  and  quiet  church- 
yard where  now  lie  Wordsworth  and  poor  Hartley, 
and  easily  found  out  the  humble  stone-built  cottage, 
close  to  the  church,  where  the  junior  of  the  two 
poets  then,  long  before,  and  for  years  after,  resided. 
He  was  not  at  home;  but  a  rosy-cheeked,  bright- 
eyed  little  maiden  told  me  that  I  should  be  sure  to 
find  him  at  the  village  inn.     Thither  I  went,  and  there, 
in  the  kitchen,  by  the  side  of  a  crackling  wood  fire, 
and  in  the  midst  of  a  group  of  waggoners  and  states- 
men, for  the  most  part  drinking  beer  and  smoking 
pipes,  I  found  the  object  of  my  search,  the  always 
original,  always  vivacious,  alw^ays  interesting  Hartley. 
The  reader  must  not  be  misled  by  the  word  "  states- 
men," or  for  one  moment  imagine  that  these  com- 
panions of  the  bard  were  men  like  Mr.  Canning,  the 
Earl  of  Liverpool,  or  Sir  Robert  Peel;  still  less  that 
personages    like    Lord    John    Russell    or    Viscount 
Palmerston,    whose    society    would    not    have    been 
very  acceptable  to  the  poet,  were  drinking  beer  and 
smoking  with  waggoners  in  the  kitchen  of  that  rustic 
inn.      A  '*  statesman  "  in   Cumberland  or  Westmor- 
land is  merely  a  small  freeholder  or  landed  proprietor 


CHAP.  VI]  WORDSWORTH'S  INTRODUCTION   53 

who  cultivates  his  own  acres  and  farms  his  own 
land.  I  made  my  bow  to  the  poet.  There  was  no 
mistaking  which  was  he,  for  his  very  small  frame 
was  delicate  and  scholar-like,  contrasting  strongly 
with  those  Anaks  who  were  with  him;  and  though 
his  black  coat  might  be  rather  "  seedy,"  he  was 
dressed  as  gentlemen  dress,  and  as  statesmen  and 
waggoners  don't.  Besides  knowing  his  father,  I  had 
once  or  twice  met  his  brother  Derwent,  in  Pall  Mall, 
at  Charles  Knight's;  but  Hartley  himself  I  had  never 
seen  before,  and  therefore  the  bard  of  Rydal  Mount 
had  furnished  me  with  a  slip  of  paper  on  which  he 
had  written  my  name,  and  little  more — a  very  little 
more — yet  still  "  more  than  delicacy  suffers  me  to 
write." 

I  handed  the  slip  to  Hartley,  who  told  me  that  he 
revered  Wordsworth,  but  that  I  had  no  need  of  any 
such  introduction  to  him,  that  my  name  was  enough, 
that  he  knew  of  me  through  some  of  my  books,  and 
through  Matthew  Davenport  Hill,  and  other  friends. 
He  and  I  were  fast  friends  in  five  minutes,  or  in  less 
time.  We  sallied  out  to  the  margin  of  the  lake,  only 
a  few  paces  from  the  inn  door;  but  we  did  not  stay 
there  long,  for  the  sunset  and  twilight  came  on  with 
a  chilling  autumnal  breeze  which  drove  us  back  to  the 
kitchen  fire,  where  we  sat  with  the  statesmen  until  a 
more  private  room  was  prepared.  I  was  hungry  as 
well  as  cold,  for  I  had  ridden  since  the  early  morning 
all  the  way  from  Penrith  and  Brougham  Hall.  I 
had  been  too  much  occupied  by  Ullswater,  the  other 
waters,  and  all  that  beautiful  scenery,  to  think  of 
eating  or  drinking,  and  I  had  taken  only  a  glass  of 
sherry  and  a  biscuit  at  Mr.  Wordsworth's.  I  was 
really  famishing  and  impatient  for  my  dinner.  Hartley 
said  he  would  see  to  that,  and  vanished  out  of  the 
kitchen  like  a  little  sprite. 

I  had  scarcely  seen  so  very  small  and  yet  so  com- 
pact and  active  a  man;  my  "  maximum  "  in  littleness 
had  been  Crofton  Croker,  author  of  those  admirable 


54  HARTLEY  COLERIDGE         [chap,  vi 

Irish  tales  and  fairy  legends;  but  Hartley  appeared 
in  my  eyes  to  be  even  smaller  than  he,  though  he 
afterwards  assured  me  he  was  nearly  an  inch  taller. 
He  was  presently  back  with  the  soothing  intelligence 
that  some  good  warm  soup,  some  fresh  trout,  and 
other  comforts,  would  be  ready  "  in  no  time,"  and 
that  a  good  capon  was  already  spitted  and  roasting 
at  another  kitchen  fire.  *'  Coleridge,"  said  I,  ''I 
hope  you  haven't  dined;  but  whether  you  have  or 
not,  you  will  keep  me  company?"  Putting  on  a 
semi-serious  face,  but  having  comedy  in  his  eye  and 
about  his  mouth,  he  replied:  "  I  can't  say  that  I 
have  not  eaten  to-day;  but  as  for  dining — regularly 
dining — that's  a  fault  I  am  seldom  guilty  of."  "  The 
more's  the  pity,  poet  !"  said  one  of  the  statesmen. 
"  Let  me  see,"  said  Hartley,  *'  I  think  the  last  time 
I  sat  down  to  a  regular  dinner  was  some  four  or  five 
weeks  ago,  when  your  friend  H.  and  his  wife  were 
here,  and  put  up  for  a  day  or  two  at  this  house." 
''  Then,"  said  I,  "  you  will  dine  to-day?"  "  With 
all  my  heart,"  said  he,  "  and  I  can  assure  you  of  a 
good  dinner.  Homely  as  the  house  may  seem,  it 
affords  good  provend,  and  the  host  has  some  tip-top 
port  in  the  cellar  !  Do  you  drink  port  ?"  "  Any 
port  in  a  storm,  or  any  port  that  comes  under  the 
lee,"  said  I.  "  Then  I'll  order  a  magnum,  and  see 
the  chill  taken  off  it,"  said  the  poet,  and  so  saying 
the  bibulous  little  sprite  vanished  again  for  a  few 
minutes.  "  That's  a  wonderful  gentleman,"  said  one 
of  the  statesmen,  *'  a  very  wonderful  gentleman  1 
Some  do  say  that  he  has  more  book-learning  than  Mr. 
Wordsworth,  or  than  Professor  Wilson,  and  that  he 
can  beat  them  hollow  at  verse-making.  We  all  love 
him,  sir,  for  he  is  so  good  and  kind,  and  so  fond  of 
our  children.  We  would  do  anything  for  our  poet, 
that  we  would  !  But  it's  a  great  pity  that  he  is  not 
more  steady  and  more  regular  at  his  meals,  for 
tippling,  though  only  with  this  small  ale,  is  bad  on 
an  empty  stomach,  and  when  he  gets  queer  in  the 


'S 


CHAP.  VI]    A  DINNER  AT  GRASMERE  55 

head  he  doesn't  always  know  what  he's  about; 
more's  the  pity,  for  he's  a  gentleman,  every  inch  of 
him,  and  would  not  hurt  a  worm." 

Hartley  and  I  were  soon  seated  in  a  cosy  little 
room — and  I  know  no  room  so  cosy  as  the  best 
parlour  of  a  country  inn  of  that  sort — with  a  good 
sea-coal  fire  burning,  a  table  nicely  spread  and  well 
covered,  and  the  magnum  of  port  glowing  in  a  couple 
of  decanters,  one  placed  by  the  poet's  plate  and  one 
by  mine.  Soup,  fish,  fowl,  wine,  and  everything  were 
excellent,  and  no  doubt  all  the  more  so  from  the 
keen  appetite  I  had  brought  to  table  with  me.  I 
was  in  little  humour  to  talk  till  after  the  removal  of 
the  trout,  by  which  time  poor  Hartley  had  told  a 
dozen  amusing  anecdotes,  and  had  nearly  emptied 
his  decanter,  much  applauding  the  wine  at  every 
glass  he  took,  and  getting  into  such  a  full  flow  of 
spirits  as  I  had  seldom  witnessed.  After  the  capon, 
we  had  potted  char,  biscuits,  and  rather  a  nice  dessert, 
and  the  poet  began  proposing  toasts  to  this  friend  or 
that,  to  this  man  of  genius  or  that  other — personally 
known  or  unknown  did  not  signify — beginning  with 
Wordsworth  as  "  the  greatest  poet  since  Milton," 
and  then  passing  to  John  Wilson  as  the  "  heartiest 
and  best  fellow  that  ever  lived  and  wrote  a  rhyme," 
and  so  on  to  others  and  others.  The  formula  was 
this :  he  would  mention  the  name  of  some  living 
writer,  or  I  would  do  so,  then  he  would  ask  me  if 
I  knew  him,  and  on  my  affirmation  he  would  fill  a 
bumper  and  say:  "Suppose  we  drink  his  health!" 
His  own  bottle  was  soon  finished ;  and  mine,  with  two 
pulls  upon  it,  did  not  last  long.  The  bell  was  rung 
for  more  wine.  Fearing  for  the  effect  on  him,  and 
thinking  of  to-morrow  morning  for  myself,  I  ordered 
a  single  bottle,  but  his  logic  presently  turned  this 
order  into  one  for  another  magnum.  He  knew  that 
the  port  in  the  magnum  bottles  was  by  far  the  best 
in  the  house,  and  he  was  rather  decidedly  of  opinion 
that  an  extra  quantity  of  such  good,  sound,  whole- 


56  HARTLEY  COLERIDGE  [chap,  vi 

some,  cheering  drink  could  do  us  no  harm.  ''  John 
Wilson/'  said  he,  "  would  take  a  couple  of  magnums 
to  his  own  share,  and  be  all  the  better  for  them  !" 
I  thought  of  Wilson's  sturdy,  massy,  tall,  capacious 
frame,  his  almost  constant  hard  exercise,  and  his 
robust  constitution,  and  felt  that  I,  and  still  less 
poor  little  Hartley,  could  never  do  what  the  author 
of  the  "  Noctes  "  might  have  done  with  impunity; 
but  the  second  magnum,  nicely  warmed  and  decanted, 
was  there;  and,  as  Mrs.  Quickly  says,  "  when  one 
has  a  cask  close  at  one's  elbow " 

From  authors  we  fell  upon  authoresses,  most  of 
whom  he  quizzed  as  "  affectations  " — a  pet  word 
with  him — and  as  "  precieuses  ridicules y^^  but  speaking 
with  genial,  glowing  praise  of  three  or  four  of  them. 
I  chanced  to  mention  old  Miss  H.  M.  "  What  !  do 
you  know  her  too  ?"  said  Hartley.  "  Only  by  sight," 
was  my  reply.     ''  Then,"  said  he,  filling  his  glass  to 

the   brim,   "  suppose  we   drink   d n   to   her  !     I 

abhor  the  woman  as  a  woman,  and  I  detest  her 
rampant  irreligion  and  all  her  principles  !"  The 
second  magnum  was  telling  on  him ;  but  he  continued 
to  talk,  and  to  talk  admirably,  consecutively,  logically, 
and  with  a  vast  deal  of  originality  and  spirit,  about 
books,  poetry,  history,  men,  and  politics,  uttering 
many  an  admirable  specimen  of  table  talk;  this  he 
continued  till  nearly  the  midnight  hour,  when  the 
wine  was  all  gone,  and  when,  quite  suddenly,  his 
senses  went  too. 

"  Never  mind,  sir  !"  said  the  landlord,  who  came 
in  with  a  servant  and  chamber-candlesticks,  ''  we 
know  his  ways ;  we  are  used  to  him ;  we  will  put  him 
to  bed  upstairs;  his  landlady  won't  expect  him  at 
home,  and  he  will  be  all  right  to-morrow  morning." 

So  upstairs  they  carried  the  little  poet,  a  feather- 
weight, and  as  unconscious  as  an  unborn  babe. 

I  was  up  the  next  morning,  dressed  and  out  by 
eight  o'clock,  but  Hartley  had  been  out  more  than 
an  hour  before  me,  and  had  been  stretching  his  legs 


CHAP.  VI]     VISIT  TO  RYDAL  MOUNT  57 

on  the  hills  which  lie  behind  Grasmere  Church.  I 
found  him,  standing  meditatingly,  on  the  margin  of 
the  lake,  only  a  few  yards  from  our  hostel.  He  was 
as  fresh  as  a  daisy,  and  as  gay  as  a  skylark  in  June. 
He  made  no  allusion  to  the  symposium  beyond 
saying  that  he  had  passed  a  very  pleasant  evening. 
At  breakfast  his  flow  of  spirits  was  quite  astonishing. 
Being  Sunday  morning,  we  went  to  the  village  church, 
wherein  a  good  number  of  his  favourite  *'  Dalesmen  " 
were  devoutly  assembled.  He  himself  was  quite 
earnest  in  his  devotions;  and  on  his  return  towards 
the  inn,  he  made  several  remarks  on  the  surpassing 
beauty  and  sublimity  of  our  Liturgy. 

We  were  preparing  to  start  for  luncheon  at  Rydal 
Mount,  when  the  considerate  hostess  said:  "Mr. 
Coleridge,  as  you  are  going  to  Mr.  Wordsworth's, 
don't  you  think  you  ought  to  put  on  a  clean  shirt, 
for  you  have  been  sleeping  in  this,  you  know?" 
"That  is  well  thought  of,"  said  the  poet;  "wait 
here,  I  will  be  back  in  five  minutes,  and  will  bring 
with  me  my  manuscript  poem  I  mentioned  last  night." 
He  was  true  to  time ;  he  was  very  rapid  in  his  move- 
ments, rather  running  or  trotting  a  short  trot  than 
walking;  but  when  he  felt  in  his  pocket  for  his  poems, 
they  were  not  there.  "  That's  odd  !"  said  he;  "  for 
I  am  almost  certain  that  I  took  them  from  my 
lodgings  with  me  !" 

"  I  tell  you  what  it  is,"  said  our  host,  "  you  are 
always  forgetting  or  dropping  that  book,  and  some 
day  you  will  be  losing  it  for  good,  and  that  will  be 
a  pity  I"  As  Hartley  and  I  were  walking  towards 
his  lodging,  he  was  accosted  by  a  little  peasant  boy, 
who  had  just  picked  up  the  manuscript  by  the  road- 
side, and  who  appeared  very  well  to  know  its  owner. 
It  was  a  common  schoolboy  copybook,  but  the  marble 
cover — if  it  had  ever  had  one — had  been  replaced  by 
a  wrapper  or  cover  of  common  brown  paper;  it  was 
rolled  up  into  the  form  of  a  baton,  and  tied  with  a 
piece  of  common  string.     But  there  were  beautiful, 


58  HARTLEY  COLERIDGE  [chap.vi 

unpublished  verses  under  that  homely  cover,  some  of 
which  he  recited  in  a  most  telling,  striking  manner, 
and  some  which  I  read  as  we  walked  onward  for 
Rydal  Mount.  Wordsworth  and  his  wife  received 
the  little  poet  most  cordially.  Mrs.  Wordsworth's 
affection  for  him  seemed  to  be  quite  maternal  and 
caressant, 

I  had  not  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Miss  Wordsworth. 
Dora  was  absent  on  a  visit.  Her  two  doves, 
of  w^iich  she  had  several  couples  in  large  wicker 
cages,  cooed  harmoniously  and  most  lovingly  as  we 
sat  and  talked  cheerfully  at  our  luncheon,  where 
Hartley  paid  due  homage  to  some  brisk,  sparkling 
table  ale. 

The  senior  poet  conducted  me  again  to  the  favourite 
culminating  point  of  view  in  his  circumscribed  but 
beautiful  domain  to  which  he  had  led  me  on  the  pre- 
ceding evening;  and  he  stayed  there  some  time, 
admiring  the  different  aspect  of  the  same  scene — 
the  same  wooded  banks,  grassy  margins,  tranquil 
lake,  and  bold  mountains — under  a  difference  of 
light  and  shade,  it  being  a  bright  afternoon  instead 
of  an  evening  sunset.  Hartley  had  stayed  in  the 
library  with  Mrs.  Wordsworth,  who  I  believe  em- 
ployed part  of  the  time  in  motherly,  gentle  admoni- 
tions. Wordsworth  spoke  of  him  to  me  with  great 
admiration,  and,  I  thought,  with  quite  as  much 
affection.  All  that  I  saw  of  the  veteran  bard  cer- 
tainly went  against  the  too  commonly  received 
theory — a  theory  very  earnestly  and  ungratefully 
propagated  by  De  Quincey — that  Wordsworth  was  a 
circumspect,  cold-hearted  man.  He  seemed  to  think 
that  Hartley  had  been  rather  harshly  treated  at 
Oxford,  and  that  that  blow,  that  uprooting  of  him 
from  the  soil  for  which  he  was  best  adapted,  had 
exercised  an  evil  influence  on  all  his  after  days. 
Poor  fellow  !  He  had  gained  distinction,  of  which 
he  could  never  have  failed — he  had  gained  his  fellow- 
ship, and  with  it  either  a  provision  for  life  or  an 


CHAP.  VI]     HIS  DREAD  OF  FINE  LADIES         59 

adytum  in  a  good  living  or  an  advantageous  station 
at  the  Bar;  but  during  his  first  or  probationary  year 
he  committed  some  indiscretions — not  worse,  I 
beheve,  than  other  men  at  that  period  committed 
with  impunity — and  in  consequence  had  been  de- 
prived of  his  fellowship  and  driven  from  his  Alma 
Mater,  without  money,  without  any  means  except 
such  as  he  might  derive  from  a  few  friends  or  from 
the  precarious  resources  of  poetry  and  general  litera- 
ture. I  never  knew  it  to  be  the  fashion  of  one 
University  to  take  up  the  quarrels  or  complaints  of 
the  other;  but  I  have  been  told  that  the  half-crazy 
conduct  of  Hartley's  father  at  Cambridge  weighed 
against  him  at  Oxford,  inflamed  the  heads  of  the 
"  Heads,"  and  tended  to  his  expulsion.  If  so,  it 
surely  was  hard  that  the  son  should  be  visited  for 
the  offence  of  the  father,  who,  some  thirty  years 
before,  had  "  bolted  "  from  classical  Cam.,  and 
had  enlisted  in  a  regiment  of  dragoons  as  Silas  Titus 
Comberbatch  I 

Wordsworth,  so  intimately  connected  with  Sou  they 
and  his  family,  and  with  all  the  Southey-Coleridge 
connections,  did  not  allude  to  that  '*  tender  passion  " 
which  I  have  been  assured  finished  the  unsettling  of 
poor  Hartley's  mind.  He  had  been  deeply,  passion- 
ately, long  in  love  with  his  charming  cousin,  Edith 
Southey;  and,  from  first  to  last,  he  had  loved  without 
hope  or  a  single  gleam  of  hope.  See  his  exquisite 
sonnet  addressed  to  Edith.  From  the  time  of  his 
awakening  from  that  uneasy  dream,  he  had  had 
a  strong  aversion  to  female  society.  Fine  ladies 
he  particularly  dreaded,  and  would  say  so  twenty 
times  a  day.  Except  with  Mrs.  Wordsworth,  Dora, 
and  John  Wilson's  homely,  kind-hearted,  sonsie, 
thoroughly  Scottish  wife,  he  did  not  feel  at  home 
with  any  woman. 

Captain  Hamilton,  author  of  "  Cyril  Thornton," 
and  of  a  history  of  the  Duke's  campaigns  in  the 
Peninsula,  a  very  accomplished,  agreeable  gentleman, 


6o  HARTLEY  COLERIDGE  [chap,  vi 

had  a  pretty  place  in  the  Lakes  not  far  from  John 
Wilson's,  and  had  Hartley  rather  frequently  for  his 
guest;  but  from  the  time  the  Captain  married  that 
fair  widow,  Lady  Farquhar,  the  eccentric  little  poet 
ceased  his  visits,  and  never  again  went  near  that 
door.  He  told  me  that  a  "  My  Lady  "  was  the  very 
thing  he  could  never  face.  There  were  few  good 
houses  within  the  Lake  regions  where  his  name  would 
not  have  procured  him  a  welcome;  but  he  would 
visit  only  old  bachelors,  or  widowers  who  had  married 
off  their  daughters.  He  might  often  have  been  at 
Lord  Lowther's,  where  Wordsworth  was  on  a  friendly 
and  even  familiar  footing,  but  he  would  not  hear  of 
such  a  visit;  and  I  fancy  that  Wordsworth,  fearing 
his  indiscretions,  which  by  this  time  were  not  always 
under  control,  be  the  place  where  it  might,  did  not 
much  press  him.  "  It  is  a  sad  case,"  said  the  sober, 
aged  bard,  ''  but  I  cannot  help  thinking  his  in- 
firmities are  strictly  hereditary,  and  I  sometimes 
think  it  better  that  he  should  drink  as  he  does  than 
take  to  opium  like  his  father.  He  has  positively  no 
other  vice;  he  is  as  innocent  and  guileless  as  a  child, 
and  as  gentle,  feeling,  and  compassionate  as  the 
gentlest  of  women.  If  he  could  only  exercise  a  little 
self-control,  and  a  little  steadiness  of  purpose  and 
application,  he  might  yet  do  great  things;  he  has  far 
more  learning  than  I  am  competent  to  judge  of,  and 
in  poetry  his  ear,  like  his  father's,  is  faultless,  perfect." 
I  said  that  he  had  promised  to  send  me  some 
articles  for  which  I  was  pretty  sure  to  find  a  good 
market,  to  which  Wordsworth  replied  that  he  only 
wished  that  he  might  adhere  to  his  intention  and 
keep  his  promise.  It  appeared  that,  for  some  time. 
Hartley  had  been  entirely  dependent  on  an  annual 
fund  of  some  £40  or  ;£5o  supplied  by  relatives — a 
bare  sufficiency,  but  still,  without  his  propensities, 
a  sufficiency  in  that  cheap,  quiet  nook.  I  could  give 
full  credit  to  Wordsworth  when  he  said  that,  in  spite 
of  his  poverty  and  all  his  irregularities,  there  was 


CHAP.  VI]     LODGINGS  AND  LIBRARY  6i 

nobody  in  all  those  vales  or  among  all  those  moun- 
tains more  cherished  than  Hartley  Coleridge;  that 
he  was  beloved  by  men,  women,  and  children;  and 
that  the  door  of  every  farmhouse,  of  every  peasant's 
cottage,  was  open  to  him  at  all  tiqies,  by  day  as  well 
as  by  inght.  "  A  lucky  thing,"  added  the  bard, 
"  as  otherwise  Hartley  in  his  wanderings  would  have 
rather  frequently  to  sleep  in  the  open  air." 

In  returning  to  our  inn  at  the  end  of  the  lake, 
Hartley  took  me  into  his  lodging  to  show  me  some 
books.  He  had  two  plainly  furnished,  but  clean 
and  comfortable  rooms,  a  very  proper  apartment 
for  a  recluse  student.  He  had  not  many  books: 
they  were  nearly  all  Greek  or  Roman  classics,  and 
most  of  them  of  large,  excellent  editions,  and  well 
bound.  I  took  down  several:  their  ample  margins 
were  postillated  and  in  parts  quite  covered  with 
notes  in  his  own  hand.  If  my  memory  do  not  betray 
me,  the  window  of  his  sitting-room  looked  on  or 
towards  the  quiet  churchyard  where,  after  ten  more 
years  of  fitful  existence,  he  was  to  be  interred. 

The  dinner,  the  evening  at  the  inn,  went  off  much 
as  the  previous  day,  only  rather  more  quietly;  when 
bedtime  came  Hartley  was  not  absolutely  under  the 
necessity  of  being  carried  upstairs.  The  next  morning 
he  was  awake  and  up  with  the  village  cocks,  and  as 
cheery  and  crowy  as  they.  But  all  the  time  I  was 
with  him  I  scarcely  saw  one  sad  or  lasting  expression 
on  his  countenance,  or  heard  a  melancholy  word 
drop  from  his  lips.  He  said  he  despised  "  lacka- 
daisicals,"  and  had  a  contempt  for  the  man  who 
could  not  be  cheerful  whenever  he  had  a  congenial 
companion.  Now  and  then,  when  I  caught  his 
mobile  features  and  changeful  countenance  in  repose, 
I  could  read  in  them  the  man  who  had  deeply  thought 
and  deeply  suffered,  but  this  was  but  for  a  moment; 
some  sudden  thought,  some  odd  conceit,  would  flash 
from  him,  and  the  whole  man  and  countenance 
would  be  changed.     He  talked  well  always,  but   I 

6 


62  HARTLEY  COLERIDGE  [chap,  vi 

fancied  he  talked  best  when  walking  fast,  or  in  going 
his  trot.  He  had  one  peculiarity  which  much  amused 
me  at  the  time,  and  of  which  I  have  very  often 
thought  since.  In  mid-career  of  talk  and  walk,  he 
would  suddenly  pull  up,  and  stamp  his  little  foot  on 
the  ground,  much  in  the  manner  of  a  goat  or  3^oung 
buck,  as  if  to  mark  the  emphasis  or  the  point  of  his 
argument  or  story.  When  much  excited  he  would 
stop  and  stamp  his  feet  six  or  more  several  times. 
I  rather  think  that  while  culminating  his  complaints 
against  Cottle,  the  Bristol  bookseller,  brother  of 
Amos  Cottle  the  writer  of  epics  and  the  butt  of  Lord 
Byron,  who  had  recently  been  bringing  out  what 
Hartley  considered  a  very  disrespectful  book  about 
his  father,  he  must  have  stamped  at  least  a  dozen 
times.  He  seldom  made  use  of  hard  words  or  of 
any  improper  language.  I  have  given  the  one  word 
of  that  sort  which  I  heard  from  him,  and  that  was 
given  in  frolic  and  not  in  anger. 

On  this  Monday  morning,  after  breakfast  at  our 

inn,  I  hired  a  chaise  for  Windermere,  and  Hartley 

gladly  agreed  to  accompany  me  to  Bowness,  and  be 

my  cicerone  on  the  lake.      It  was  a  splendid  day; 

that    fine,    bright,    brisk,    autumnal    weather    still 

favouring    and    blessing   me.     We   had    a    charming 

drive;  but  I  rather  think  that  we  walked  more  than 

we  rode,  for  we  alighted  at  the  foot  of  every  hill, 

frequently    diverged    for    the    sake    of   some    choice 

prospect,  and  loitered  and  sauntered  along  the  high 

road    whenever    the    scenery    was    particularly    fine. 

The  sere  and  yellow  leaves  had  fallen  and  were  fast 

falling,  coming  pattering  down  with  every  gust  of 

wind.     The  road  in  places  was  quite  thickly  strew^ed 

with   them,   and   they  crumpled   and  rustled   under 

our   feet   as   we   walked.     I   still   see   poor   Hartley 

raising  his  small  foot  and  kicking  them  before  him, 

where  they  were  so  thick  as  to  impede  his  progress. 

In  the  action,  in  his  guilelessness  and  singleness  of 

heart,  he  reminded  me  of  the  little  Dauphin,  the  son 


i  i 


CHAP,  vi]      VISIT  TO  WINDERMERE  63 

of  Louis  XVI.,  who  on  an  earlier  day  of  autumn 
kicked  the  fallen  leaves  in  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries, 
as  he  was  being  conveyed  with  his  father  and  mother, 
his  sister  and  aunt,  from  the  beleaguered  palace  to 
the  National  Assembly,  thence  to  pass  to  the  Temple, 
to  torture,  horrors,  and  death. 

It  was  yet  early  in  the  day  when  we  descended  at 
that  most  comfortable,  cosy  hotel  at  Bowness,  where 
everybody  seemed  to  be  intimately  acquainted  with 
my  comrade  and  to  give  him  a  cheering  welcome. 
While  I  ordered  dinner  he  went  to  hire  a  boat.  He 
was  as  well  known  to  all  the  boatmen  and  people 
along  the  bank  as  he  was  up  at  the  inn ;  his  arrival 
made  quite  a  fete  among  them.  We  rowed  for  a 
couple  of  hours  on  that  beautiful  lake,  which,  with 
its  neighbours,  I  could  admire  after  all  the  lakes  I 
had  seen  in  Switzerland,  Italy,  and  Asia  Minor.  We 
pulled  up  at  that  bowery,  fairy  little  island  facing 
Bowness,  an  island  which,  but  for  the  public-house  or 
inn  on  it,  might  have  recalled  the  Douglas  Isle  in  the 
"  Lady  of  the  Lake."  Hartley  jumped  out  of  the 
boat  and  ran  away  among  the  trees.  I  stood  for 
a  few  minutes  at  the  water's  edge  to  take  in  the 
opposite  scenery;  and  by  the  time  I  went  through 
the  avenue  and  reached  the  house  of  entertainment, 
the  poet  was  seated  within  the  porch,  with  a  bottle 
of  port  wine  and  glasses  all  ready. 

He  assured  me  that  the  port  was  almost  as  good 
as  that  in  the  magnums  at  Grasmere.  Rather 
fearing  such  strong  potations  before  dinner,  I  called 
up  our  two  boatmen  and  gave  them  a  full  tumbler 
of  the  port,  which  diminished  our  mischief;  but,  with 
Hartley's  ready  aid,  the  rest  was  drunk  off  in  no  time. 
When  I  stepped  aside  with  the  landlord  he  would 
not  take  my  money,  saying  that  the  wine  was  paid 
for.  As  I  shrewdly  suspected  the  poet  had  not  a 
sixpence,  I  concluded  either  that  his  credit  was  good, 
or  that  the  host,  for  the  poet's  own  sake,  or  for  the 
sake  of  Professor  Wilson  and  other  richer  friends, 


64  HARTLEY  COLERIDGE  [chap,  vi 

had  felt  happy  to  treat  poor  Hartley  with  a  bottle. 
Returning  to  Bowness,  we  had  merry  talk  about 
John  Wilson,  the  universally  acknowledged  "  Ad- 
miral "  of  the  lake,  who  for  many  years  presided  at 
the  regattas,  and  took  an  active  part  in  every  manly 
sport  and  pastime  that  was  toward.  All  would  have 
been  well  with  my  companion;  but  while  I  walked 
up  to  the  inn,  he  must  needs  make  a  call  on  some 
old  crony,  and  that  worthy  man.  North-country 
fashion,  could  not  let  him  go  without  a  drink. 

Thus  the  poor  poet  was  a  bit  fuddled  before  we 
sat  down  to  table ;  yet  during  the  whole  of  the  dinner, 
and  for  a  good  hour  after  it,  his  conversation  was  rich, 
racy,  full  of  point  and  wit,  and  quite  delightful. 

Before  his  evanescent  turn,  I  spoke  about  the 
articles  which  he  was  to  send  me;  and  in  as  delicate 
a  manner  as  I  could  manage,  I  extracted  from  him, 
not  without  difficulty,  the  confession  that  he  w^as, 
at  the  moment,  penniless.  I  had  no  money  about 
me  that  I  could  spare,  but  I  was  happy  in  being 
able  to  give  him  a  cheque  upon  a  London  banker, 
w^hich  he  said  he  could  easily  get  cashed.  I  would 
gladly  have  sta3^ed  a  day  or  two  longer  at  the  Lakes, 
but  my  absence  from  home  had  already  been  longer 
than  calculated  at  starting,  and  I  was  called  back 
by  work  to  do  and  b}^  domestic  considerations.  On 
arriving  at  Bowness  I  had  ordered  a  chaise  to  convey 
me  to  Staley  Bridge,  at  the  end  of  the  lake,  where  I 
was  sure  of  finding  the  public  conveyance  for  Lan- 
caster and  Preston  at  an  early  hour  next  morning. 
The  chaise  came  to  the  door  about  eight  o'clock  in 
the  evening,  and  coincidently  with  its  arrival  was 
the  retreat  of  Hartley  to  a  sofa  in  the  room,  near  a 
comfortable  fire.  The  poet  was  past  speech,  and  in 
a  minute  or  two  he  was  fast  asleep.  I  called  up  the 
worthy  landlord,  thought  it  prudent  to  tell  him  about 
the  cheque,  and  begged  him  to  take  care  of  the  poet. 

Like  our  host  at  Grasmere,  he  told  me  that  he  knew 
his  ways,  and  that  the  people  in  the  house  were  used 


CHAP.  VI]       LIFE  AS  SCHOOLMASTER  65 

to  him.  "  Every  care  will  be  taken  of  him,"  con- 
tinued the  host,  "  and  he  will  be  all  right  to-morrow. 
I  will  cash  the  draft,  but  will  take  good  care  that  he 
shall  not  have  all  that  money  at  once.  Bless  you, 
sir  I  if  he  had,  he  would  not  get  home,  and  would 
probably  not  be  heard  of  for  a  month  to  come  !  He 
shall  have  what  is  necessary  for  his  return  to  Gras- 
mere,  and  I  will  send  the  rest  of  the  money,  by  a 
safe  hand,  to  Mr.  Wordsworth  or  to  his  landlady; 
so  have  no  uneasiness  about  him."  I  shook  my 
recumbent  and  quite  unconscious  friend  by  the  hand, 
left  that  warm  fireside  for  my  open  chaise — and  never 
saw  him  again. 

The  next  morning  I  had  for  a  companion  in  the 
stage-coach  a  young  Cumbrian  who  was  going  up 
to  Cambridge,  and  who,  a  year  or  two  before,  had 
been  pupil  in  a  school  where  Hartley  had  undertaken 
the  drudgery  of  an  under-master.  According  to  the 
young  man's  account,  he  was  steady  and  quite 
exemplary  for  a  time,  but  he  then  broke  loose,  and 
there  was  then  hardly  ever  any  chance  of  catching 
him  again.  The  boys  all  loved  him,  would  have 
done  anything  and  everything  for  him;  being  so 
much  liked  and  having  such  a  way  of  engaging  their 
attention,  and  such  a  happy  knack  in  teaching,  they 
learned  more  from  him  in  three  or  four  months  than 
they  would  have  done  from  any  other  master  in 
thrice  the  time.  The  head-master  and  the  good 
lady  his  wife  did  all  they  could  to  conceal  his  irregu- 
larities, and  to  amend  them;  but,  unhappily,  the 
last  was  not  to  be.  Yet,  at  the  very  end,  there  was 
no  dismissal,  no  weariness  in  their  generous  efforts 
on  the  part  of  that  excellent  pair;  Hartley  took 
himself  off  with  a  few  shillings  in  his  pocket,  and 
returned  no  more.  He  had  told  me  at  Grasmere 
that  he  had  once  been  a  dominie,  and  found  the  life 
insupportable,  but  he  had  gone  into  no  particulars. 

Some  six  weeks  after  my  return  home  I  received, 
by  coach,  a  queer  little  parcel  done  up  in  grocer's 


66  HARTLEY  COLERIDGE  [chap,  vi 

brown  paper,  and  tied  wdth  a  bit  of  twine,  without 
any  security  in  the  way  of  seahng.  It  was  from  poor 
Hartley.  It  contained,  not  the  promised  prose 
articles,  but  copies  of  some  of  the  small  poems  which 
I  had  so  much  admired  in  his  old  copybook,  with 
two  quite  new  sonnets,  one  being  that  exquisite  little 
piece  on  a  Confirmation  of  young  children .  The  letter 
which  accompanied  the  MS.  was  short,  and  almost 
all  about  this  Confirmation,  with  the  sight  of  w^hich 
he  had  been  deeply  and  lastingly  impressed .  Although 
I  knew^  poetry  to  be  rather  a  drug  in  the  market,  I 
entertained  some  hopes,  w^hich  were  not  realized,  of 
being  able  to  turn  his  beautiful  verses  to  some  account. 
I  wrote  to  him  for  the  more  vendible  articles  in  prose, 
and  received  no  answer.  Hard  work,  severe  sickness, 
and  increasing  family  cares,  quite  absorbed  me,  till 
it  seemed  too  late  to  renew  the  correspondence.  I 
was  wrong ;  I  ought  to  have  wTitten  again  and  again . 
I  ought  to  have  made  further  efforts  to  be  of  use  to  him, 
and  I  now  bitterl}'  regret  that  I  did  not.  There  was, 
however,  this  additional  impedimenttim,  or  discourage- 
ment :  the  dear  "  Trade  "  would  not  hear  of  his  name 
— "  he  was  so  poor,  so  unpunctual,  so  irregular,  so 
never  to  be  depended  upon,  etc.,  etc."  Poor  dear 
Hartley  Coleridge  !     Next  to  Shelley,  and  in  degree  I 

scarcely  inferior  to  him,  he  gave  me  the  idea  of  what 
I  understand  by  a  "  Man  of  Genius."  He  was  all 
over  genius,  and  his  father  w^as  conscious  of  it.  The 
"  old  man  eloquent  "  used  to  say  that  his  son  Der- 
went  had  his  genius,  but  that  his  genius  had  Hartley. 
He  was,  in  fact,  possessed  as  by  a  spirit  that  was  not 
to  be  cast  out,  or  rebuked,  or  restrained.  Derwent 
wTote  prett}^  poetry  in  his  earlier  days;  and  is  now, 
and  long  has  been,  a  quiet,  respectable,  industrious, 
altogether  reputable  clergyman  and  schoolmaster. 


.1 


CHAPTER    VII 

THOMAS  MOORE 

The  first  time  I  met  this  usually  merry  man,  he  was 
in  no  Anacreontic  humour.  It  was  in  the  spring  of 
1829,  when  he  was  mourning  for  the  recent  loss  of 
his  only  daughter.  To  all  appearance  this  sorrow  did 
not  last  very  long,  but  it  was  deep  while  it  endured ; 
and  was,  I  believe,  all  the  deeper  from  the  attempts 
he  made  to  suppress  or  conceal  it,  and  to  keep  his 
own  as  songster  and  wit  in  fashionable  and  literary 
society. 

"  Give  sorrow  vent,"  is  an  excellent  maxim;  and 
I  think,  with  Jeremy  Taylor,  we  ought  not  to  bear 
too  philosophically  the  extreme  visitations  of  Provi- 
dence, but  should  show  by  tears  and  otherwise  that 
we  feel  them  at  the  heart's  core. 

"  All  Solomon's  sea  of  brass  and  world  of  stone 
Is  not  so  dear  to  Thee  as  one  good  groan."  * 

The  place  of  our  meeting  was  John  Murray's 
Albemarle  Street  dining-room,  by  the  fireside,  and 
just  under  the  portrait  of  Lord  Byron  by  Phillips, 
which  then  hung  over  the  mantelpiece.  I  was  at  my 
ease  with  Moore  in  a  minute;  and  before  we  parted, 
after  a  talk  of  nearly  two  hours,  I  felt  as  if  we  had 
been  old  familiar  friends.  What  Walter  Scott  says 
of  him  is  perfectly  true.  Though  so  fond  of  society 
and  pleasure,  and  though  so  very  small  in  person — 
smaller  even  than  myself — Moore  was  thoroughly  a 
manly  fellow,  and  except  on  certain  rare  occasions, 
utterly    devoid    of   pretension    and    affectation.     He 

*  George  Herbert's  "  Sion,"  1633. 
67 


68  THOMAS  MOORE  [chap.vii 


was  then  engaged  in  editing  the  letters  and  writing 
the  Life  of  Lord  Byron,  and  most  of  our  conversation 
turned  upon  or  round  that  subject.  He  asked  me 
for  some  information  about  the  different  parts  of 
Italy  where  Childe  Harold  had  resided,  and  for  some 
Itahan  anecdotes  about  him.  I  did  my  best,  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment,  to  satisfy  him  both  ways.  He 
inserted  some  of  my  anecdotes  and  omitted  others. 
A  day  or  two  after  we  met  at  John  Murray's  hospitable 
table,  at  that  time  frequented  by  some  of  the  most 
amusing  and  best  society  of  London.     A  httle  later  ^  j 

in  the  season  I  met  Moore  at  one  of  Lady  Jersey's  j 

"  At  Homes,"  and  before  the  season  ended  I  en- 
countered him  rather  frequently  in  other  places.  I 
think  that  it  was  late  in  June  that  I  had  with  him 
a  little  adventure,  which  rather  nettled  me  at  the 
time,  when  I  was  young  in  authorship,  but  at  which 
I  have  often  laughed  since.  Through  Count  Pecchio, 
who  had  met  the  philologist  at  Madrid,  and  had  there 
taken  him  for  an  active  Member  of  Parliament,  or 
for  the  head  of  a  party,  seeing  the  extent  of  his 
political  correspondence,  I  became  acquainted  with 
Bowring,  at  that  time  designated  Doctor,  and  now 
— with  your  bene  placet — Sir  John  Bowring,  Governor 
of  Hong-Kong. 

He  was  editing,  for  old  Jeremy  Bentham,  who 
paid  the  piper,  the  Westminster  Review y  which  went 
the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  Utilitarianism  and 
Radicalism.  He  was  living  in  that  recondite  nook  of 
London,  Queen  Square.  Though  rather  in  low  water, 
John  liked  to  make  a  display  and  give  soirees,  whereat 
there  was  nothing  but  talk,  and  that  talk  nearly  all 
his  own.  His  entertainments  must  have  been  cheap 
to  his  purse,  but  I  fancy  they  must  have  been  very 
costly  to  the  patience  of  his  guests.  One  evening, 
Moore  and  I  were  dining  at  John  Murray's  with  a 
very  choice  and  cheerful  party.  Just  as  we  were 
getting  into  full  swing,  at  about  ten  o'clock,  I  rose 
to  take  my  departure.     "  Where  are  you  going  so 


CHAP.  VII]     A  "  SOIREE  "  AT  BOWRING'S        69 

early?"  said  King  John  II.  I  said  that  I  had 
accepted  an  invitation  to  a  soirSc  at  Dr.  Bowring's. 

"  Dr.  Bowring  be  d d  !"  said  His  Majesty.     ''  Not 

so  fast  !"  said  Moore.  "  Remember,  he  edits  a  Re- 
view, and  has  some  influence  on  the  sale  of  new  books. 
He  has  invited  me,  and  I  will  go  with  Mac.  If  we 
don't  go,  he  will  take  offence,  and  cut  up  my  Life  of 
Byron  and  Mac's  book  of  travels."  "  And  if  you 
do  go,"  said  Murray,  "  he  will  cut  you  both  up  all 
the  same.  As  a  Radical  he  must  hate  MacFarlane's 
politics,  and  as  a  leveller  he  must  hate  Byron  as  a 
lord,  and  hate  you  as  having  the  entree  with  society 
from  which  he  is  excluded  by  his  principles,  manners, 
and  eternal  babbling."  I  think  that  but  for  Moore 
and  the  sure  pleasure  of  his  company,  I  should  have 
stayed  where  I  was,  but  he  ordered  a  hackney  coach 
to  the  door,  and  we  w^ent.  It  was  a  tedious,  deso- 
lating affair,  full  of  foreigners  and  political  fugitives 
from  all  countries,  and  the  agreeable  pastime  was 
to  hear  the  Doctor  talking  Magyar  with  a  Hungarian, 
Slavonic  with  a  Pole,  German  with  a  German,  and 
Spanish,  Portuguese,  Swedish,  Danish,  and  Dutch 
with  representatives  of  these  nations. 

No  doubt  it  was  very  wonderful — but  at  the  same 
time  it  was  quite  as  enmiyant.  I  never  saw  such  a 
display  of  vanity,  and  never  heard  such  volubility: 
the  Doctor  was  one  continuous  torrent  of  talk.  His 
foreigners,  as  in  duty  bound,  turned  up  their  eyes, 
clapped  their  hands,  and  expressed  astonishment 
and  enthusiastic  admiration. 

Neither  Moore  nor  I  could  do  this ;  but  I  think 
that  we  behaved  with  discretion  and  politeness,  and 
I  know  that  we  stood  it  all  for  nearly  the  space  of 
two  hours.  "  Good  heavens  I"  said  Byron's  bio- 
grapher, when  we  got  out  into  the  Square  and  the 
streets,  "  was  there  ever  such  a  talker  as  this  I  And 
nothing  to  wash  it  all  down  with  !  People  may  well 
call  him  *  Boring  '!  I  am  exhausted,  quite  done  I 
I  must  really  have  some  sherry  and  water."     We 


70  THOMAS  MOORE  [chap,  vii 

went  into  a  coffee-house  near  the  British  Museum, 
the  first  we  found  open ;  and  there,  over  our  tumblers, 
discussed  the  pleasures  of  our  soiree.  But  we  were 
not  quit  for  this.  Murray  turned  out  to  be  a  true 
prophet.  Only  two  mornings  after  our  visit  in 
Queen's  Square,  out  came  the  new  number  of  the 
Westminster,  and  in  it  two  violent,  abusive  articles, 
the  one  on  Moore's  "  Life  of  Byron,"  the  other  on 
my  first  book,  and  both  written  by  the  Doctor  him- 
self, who  must  have  had  them  printed  and  ready 
when  he  invited  us,  for  the  first  time  in  our  lives, 
to  his  house.  I  confess  that  I  was  very  angry,  and 
though  Moore  treated  it  as  a  jest  and  farce,  I  think 
he  rather  felt  it,  or  at  least  that  he  inwardly  resented 
Bowring's  impertinent  duplicity. 

The  man  had  almost  been  down  on  his  knees  to 
the  poet  to  beg  for  the  "  honour  "  of  his  company, 
and  had  extracted  from  him  a  positive  promise  that 
he  would  be  at  the  soiree.  Murray  laughed  at  us, 
and  triumphed  over  us  with  little  mercy.  "  I  told 
you  how  it  would  be  !  You  had  your  warning,  and 
yet  you  would  leave  me  to  go  to  that  Radical's  ! 
There  is  one  comfort:  I  don't  think  his  review  will 
do  either  of  you  much  harm."  It  certainly  did  not. 
After  this,  I  was  rather  frequently  in  the  same  room, 
or  at  the  same  party,  as  the  Doctor,  who  would 
have  been  as  free  and  familiar  as  ever;  but  though 
my  anger  had  subsided,  my  aversion  to  the  man  and 
to  his  rampant  conceit  remained,  and  I  always 
avoided  him  as  much  as  it  was  possible  to  do  con- 
sistently with  the  forbearance  and  politeness  to  which 
one  is  bound  in  mixed  society,  or  in  chance  meetings 
at  the  dinner  table.  One  summer  evening  in  the 
next  season  (1830),  I  met  him  at  a  dinner  party  at 
Henry  Lytton  Bulwer's,  who  then  had  a  house  in 
Hill  Street.  There  were  present,  among  others, 
Edward  Lytton  Bulwer,the  author, our  host's  brother; 
one  of  the  sons  of  Count  Lieven,  the  Russian  Am- 
bassador; and  Mr.  Fitzgerald — not  he  of  Freemason's 


CHAP,  vii]        A  DINNER  AT  BULWER^S  71 

Hall  and  Literary  Fund  Dinner  notoriety,  but  a 
minor  poet,  who  wrote  rather  pretty  vers  de  societe, 
and  was  on  the  whole  an  accomplished  young  man. 
Before  the  soup  was  off  the  table,  Boring  took  the 
lead  of  the  talk,  and  he  kept  it.  How  the  two 
Bulwers,  both  of  them  rather  impatient,  impulsive 
men,  and  both  of  them  men  of  fashion  if  not  quite 
dandies,  stood  it  all,  I  could  not  imagine.  There  is, 
however,  this  to  be  said  :  both  were  authors,  the  Doctor 
had  lauded  everything  that  they  had  produced,  and 
was  quite  ready  to  do  the  same  by  everything  they 
might  publish  hereafter.  Henry  certainly  got  out 
the  value  of  the  Doctor's  share  of  his  pudding,  in 
praise.  Young  Lieven  was  quite  obsddd,  overpowered 
and  crushed;  and  to  create  a  diversion,  as  we  were 
sitting  over  the  dessert,  he  proposed  calling  in  and 
up  a  poor  Italian  who  was  playing  the  guitar  and 
singing,  not  unmelodiously,  in  the  street.  Our  host 
consented,  and  Lieven 's  motion  was  carried  nem. 
con.  But  at  first  the  experiment  seemed  likely  to 
be  unsuccessful,  for  Boring  began  firing  off  his  Italian, 
in  round  shot  and  grape,  at  the  poor  minstrel. 

Lieven,  however,  started  the  guitar,  and  all  we 
who  were  anti-Boring  kept  the  fellow  going  for  a 
full  hour  or  more.  Edward  Lytton  Bulwer  was 
even  then  rather  deaf,  and  did  not  much  enjoy  the 
music,  which  was  only  just  tolerable;  he  went  into 
an  inner  room,  whither  the  Doctor  followed  him,  and 
there,  during  all  the  time  the  minstrel  stayed,  he 
pinned  the  novelist  in  the  corner  of  a  sofa,  and  kept 
entire  possession  of  his  ear.  When  the  party  united, 
the  man  of  many  tongues  was  as  full  of  tongue  as 
ever.  As  I  was  walking  homeward  with  young 
Lieven,  who  had  been  educated  in  England  and  was 
more  than  half  an  Englishman,  he  said  tome:  "  Where- 
ever  did  Bulwer  pick  up  that  eternal  talker  ?  Who 
is  he?"  ''They  call  him  Dr.  Boring,"  I  replied. 
"  And  not  without  reason  !"  said  the  Russ.  When 
I  described  this  party  to  Moore,  he  laid  his  hand  upon 


72  THOMAS  MOORE  [chap,  vii 

his  breast,  and  said  with  mock  solemnity,  "  My  dear 
fellow  !  I  pity  you  from  my  heart  !"  In  this  season, 
or  very  late  in  the  preceding  autumn,  Moore  kindly 
introduced  me  to  Luttrell,  then  one  of  the  greatest 
of  our  London  wits,  author  of  "  Advice  to  Julia," 
and  of  more  bons  mots  and  good  things  than  could 
be  counted  on  a  summer's  day. 

I  thought  Luttrell's  manner  perfection  itself,  and 
his  wit  was  of  that  quiet  sort  which  I  could  best  en- 
joy, being,  like  Stewart  Rose's,  blended  with  humour, 
and  in  fact  being  on  the  whole  rather  humour  than 
wit.  I  now  regret  that  I  did  not  see  him  more  often ; 
I  did  not  see  him  half  so  often  as  I  might  have  done. 
It  grieved  me  to  hear  how  he  had  gotten  married  in 
his  old  age,  and  quite  broken  up.  Moore  had  an 
amazingly  rich  repertory  of  his  sayings  and  good 
things,  but  I  do  not  see  the  best  of  them  in  Moore's 
letters  and  journals  which  Lord  John  Russell  has 
so  mis-edited. 

In  spite  of  the  vast  deal  of  bad  in  the  noble  rhymer 
that  had  come  to  his  know^ledge,  in  the  famous  auto- 
biography which  the  executors  w^ithdrew  from  Moore 
and  committed  to  the  flames,  in  suppressed  letters 
and  journals,  and  from  numerous  other  sources, 
Moore  seemed  to  me  to  retain  a  strong  affection  for 
the  memory  of  Lord  Byron,  and  to  be  averse  to 
hearing  any  man  speak  ill  of  him.  Leigh  Hunt's 
statements  about  the  author  of  ''  Childe  Harold  " 
I  believe  to  be,  in  the  main,  correct  and  unexag- 
gerated.  Every  detail  he  gives,  and  every  bit  of  con- 
versation he  quotes,  is  so  like  Byron,  is  "  Byronic  " 
all  over.  It  will  be  remembered  that  there  was  a 
feud  between  Hunt  and  Moore,  and  hence  it  may  be 
suspected  that  Hunt  would  not  report  favourably 
the  words  that  Byron  was  accustomed  to  say  of 
Moore  !  I  am  happy  to  say  that  this  feud  was  made 
up  several  years  before  the  death  of  the  Irish  melodist. 
Hunt  declares  that  Byron  used  to  ridicule  Moore's 
tuft-hunting,   or  veneration   for  rank,   and   to   say: 


CHAP,  vii]       HIS  INDEPENDENT  SPIRIT         73 

"  Tommy  dearly  loves  a  lord  !"  Now,  at  Genoa, 
just  before  his  departure  for  Greece,  Lord  Byron 
used  these  very  words  to  my  friend  T.  H.;  and  when 
in  Greece,  at  Missolonghi,  he  repeated  them  more 
than  once  to  his  physician  and  my  friend,  the  late 
Dr.  Milligen.  I  have  heard  others  taunt  poor 
Moore  and  his  memory  with  the  same  foible;  but  if 
Moore  loved  a  lord,  it  was,  I  think,  indispensable 
that  the  said  lord  should  be  a  man  of  wit  or  ability, 
or  be  in  possession  of  some  endearing  and  more  solid 
quality  than  that  of  a  mere  title.  The  lords  whom 
Moore  frequented,  and  the  ladies  at  whose  parties 
he  joked,  pla^'^ed  the  piano,  and  sang — no  doubt 
rather  too  frequently — were  one  and  all  highly  accom- 
plished persons.  If  talent,  vivacity,  esprit,  and  a 
social  humour  happen  to  be  united  with  rank,  I 
cannot  see  that  they  ought  to  be  shunned  or  not 
courted  on  that  account.  I  am  fain  to  confess  that 
I  admire  them  rather  the  more  for  their  union  with 
rank  and  station,  and  I  beheve  that  nearly  every 
man  in  England,  if  he  would  only  be  frank  and  truth- 
ful, would  make  the  same  confession.  I  never  saw, 
on  the  part  of  the  melodist,  any  toadying,  sub- 
serviency, truckling,  or  meanness;  he  knew  the  world, 
and  had  too  much  taste  and  tact  for  that.  He  would 
not  have  been  in  the  society  he  frequented  if  he  had 
insulted  its  good  sense  and  correct  taste  by  syco- 
phancy and  flattery;  he  maintained  his  position  in 
it  because  he  had  a  manl}^,  independent  spirit,  and 
the  proper  self-respect  of  a  scholar  and  gentleman. 

To  within  a  very  few  years  of  his  death,  whenever 
not  depressed  by  family  troubles,  Moore's  spirit  was 
most  hilarious.  It  was  impossible  to  be  with  him  and 
not  be  caught  by  it.  His  hearty,  though  not  very 
loud  laugh,  was  irresistibly  catching.  I  have  been 
in  his  company  at  times  when  I  was  beginning  to 
feel,  like  himself,  the  heavy  weight  of  family  anxieties 
and  worldly  cares,  disappointments,  and  troubles, 
but  I  could  never  hear  that  laugh  without  joining  in 


74  THOMAS  MOORE  [chap,  vii 

it.  Poor  Tommy  Moore  !  His  harp  grew  mute  at 
last,  and  out  went  all  the  dazzling  lights  in  his  fancy's 
hall  !  Not  very  long  before  his  death,  my  friend 
Creswick,  the  distinguished  landscape-painter,  paid 
him  a  visit  at  his  Wiltshire  cottage,  which  rejoiced  in 
the  not  very  poetical  name  of  Sloperton. 

He  found  the  poet,  much  aged,  walking  in  his 
limited  grounds,  which  he  had  rather  abundantly 
planted  with  laurels.  He  appreciated  Creswick 's 
exquisite  talent  in  delineating  rural,  rock}^,  and 
watery  scenes;  he  was  cordial,  and  for  a  short  time 
rather  cheerful ;  but  the  merry  mirth-provoking  laugh 
was  no  longer  to  be  heard.  He  made  one  joke; 
and,  I  think,  only  one.  "  You  find  me,"  said  he, 
"  reposing  upon,  or  among,  my  laurels."  The  painter 
had  heard  that  he  was  engaged  on  some  work  in 
prose.  "  No,"  said  Moore  with  a  tremulous  voice, 
and  with  a  cloud  on  the  brow  which  had  so  long 
reflected  little  else  but  fun,  drollery,  and  wit,  *'  no  ! 
I  have  done  with  prose,  and — what  is  worse  ! — with 
poetry  too." 

Creswick  set  me  right  in  one  rather  important  par- 
ticular. I  had  long  understood  that  the  Marquis  of 
Lansdowne,  to  whom  Sloperton  Cottage  and  its  little 
entourage  belonged,  had  placed  the  poet  in  it  free  of 
rent,  and  without  the  quarter-day's  annoyance — a 
small  matter  for  so  wealthy  a  man  and  so  near  a 
country  neighbour,  and  for  one  who  had  had  the 
closest  intimacy  with  the  poet,  and  was  one  of  his 
most  frequent  hosts.  Moore  was,  and  always  had 
been,  a  paying  tenant;  the  Marquis,  through  his 
agent,  received  the  rent.  For  the  present,  enough 
of  Tommy  Moore,  of  whose  acquaintance  I  was  proud, 
and  whose  memory  I  shall  cherish  until  the  curtain 
drops  upon  me,  as  it  has  upon  him. 


CHAP,  vii]        A  POET'S  HAPPY  DEVICE  75 

WILLIAM  LISLE  BOWLES 

This  good  old  poet,  and  excellent  old  priest  and 
prebend,  who  did  good  to  literature  by  inspiring 
Coleridge  and  Southey,  and  who  did  still  more  good 
to  society  by  setting  an  example  of  charitableness, 
contentment,  and  cheerfulness,  had  many  little 
peculiarities,  in  addition  to  his  amusing,  quite  ami- 
able little  vanities.  He  was  ver}^  short-sighted,  but, 
being  fond  of  the  saddle,  he  nearly  always  rode  to 
dinner  parties  in  the  country  on  horseback,  and 
returned  in  the  same  way.  In  these  excursions, 
which  often  ended  at  rather  a  late  hour  of  the  night, 
he  was  attended  by  a  hybrid*  fellow,  half  gardener, 
half  groom,  who  did  not  ride  behind  in  groom  fashion, 
but  in  front,  to  guide  his  master. 

Notwithstanding  this  good  arrangement,  the 
reverend  old  poet  rather  frequently  lost  sight  of  his 
man,  diverged  from  the  road,  and  got  a  tumble,  or 
fell  into  some  other  disaster.  At  last  he  hit  upon 
this  happy  device.  When  the  night  was  at  all  dark 
he  made  his  man  slip  a  snow-white  smock  over  his 
dress,  and  carry  a  big  lantern  fastened  to  the  cantle 
of  his  saddle. 

It  was  thus  next  to  impossible  to  lose  sight  of  him, 
and  by  steering  close  in  his  wake,  or  by  keeping  the 
nose  of  his  own  horseclose  to  the  tail  of  the  man 's  horse, 
he  could  travel  through  a  dark  night  in  comfort  and 
safety.  With  this  oddly-equipped  attendant  before 
him,  and  the  grins  and  titters  of  all  the  flunkies  in 
the  hall  behind  him,  he  would  often  ride  from  the 
Marquis  of  Lansdowne's  door  at  Bowood.  But  often 
his  road  from  other  houses  lay  across  a  part  of 
Salisbury  Plain,  or  through  solitary,  haunted  lanes. 
The  Wiltshire  peasantry  of  the  neighbourhood  were 
very  superstitious,  and  it  took  time  and  practice  to 
reconcile  them  to  the  sight  of  a  sheeted  ghost  on 
horseback,  with  a  trail  of  fire,  followed  by  the  devil 
on  horseback,  dressed  all  in  black. 


16  WILLIAM  LISLE  BOWLES     [chap,  vii 

Several  benighted  clowns  were  scared  out  of  their 
wits,  and  told  frightful  stories  of  what  they  had 
seen;  but  by  degrees  the  mystery  was  explained,  and 
it  became  known  all  over  the  country  that  the  sup- 
posed devil  was  good  Parson  Bowles,  and  the  ghost 
his  man  Tom. 

He  was  very  fond  of  sheep  and  the  sound  of  sheep- 
bells.  A  good  flock  was  always  feeding  on  his  glebe, 
or  on  the  lawn  close  to  his  house.  One  day  a  great 
musical  idea  seized  him.  "  Those  bells,"  thought  he, 
''  are  all  tuned  to  one  key,  and  produce  onl}'  one 
note.  If  I  get  bells  made  in  different  keys,  hang  them 
on  different  sheep,  and  disperse  them  through  the 
flock,  I  shall  get  a  tune,  a  harmony;  at  least  some- 
thing as  musical  and  regular  as  a  peal  of  church 
bells."  It  was  easy  enough  to  make  or  to  obtain 
sheep-bells  of  different  ke3^s,  but  when  he  came  to 
hang  them  upon  his  fleecy,  four-footed  ringers,  some- 
how or  other  they  never  would  run  about  and  ring 
them  at  the  proper  time,  or  in  any  accord  with  their 
fellow-ringers.  When  the  poet  wanted  C  sharp  from 
some  of  his  muttons  or  lambkins,  the  rogues  were 
sure  to  come  out  with  a  G  sharp ;  whenever  he  wanted 
a  bass  for  his  treble,  he  was  sure  to  get  more  treble, 
and  the  further  and  further  continuance  of  it.  In 
short,  he  could  make  nothing  of  it;  but  he  never 
could  make  out  why  his  experiment  should  not  have 
succeeded,  and  have  given  constant  music  to  his 
rural  parsonage. 

Bowles  and  Tommy  Moore  were  for  a  long  time 
dwellers  in  Wiltshire,  and  agreed  much  better  than 
might  have  been  expected  from  two  near  neighbours, 
being  poets  both;  but  the  prebend  was  thoroughly 
a  kind,  easy,  gentlemanly  old  gentleman ;  and  Moore, 
in  essentials,  was  always  a  good  fellow.  Tommy, 
like  W.  S.  Rose,  would  often  "  quiz  "  the  veteran 
sonneteer,  but  it  was  in  a  way  to  make  one  love  him, 
and  love  him  all  the  better  for  his  whims  and  oddities. 

I   never   knew  so  ardent  an  admirer  of  Bowles's 


CHAP.  VII]      HIS  ADMIRED  SONNETS  ^^ 

sonnets  as  was  rough,  hearty,  thoroughly  manly  John 
Wilson.  For  myself,  I  loved  them  dearly  when  a 
boy,  and  knew  most  of  them  by  heart.  I  can  find 
great  pleasure  in  them  still,  a  part  of  the  pleasure 
coming,  no  doubt,  from  early  recollections  and 
associations.  For  example,  I  perfectly  remember 
the  beautiful  spot,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Thames, 
between  Reading  and  Sonning,  where  I  first  learned 
one  of  the  prettiest  of  them : 

"  As  on  we  went  beneath  the  summer  wind." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY 

I  HAVE  been  reading  two  volumes  of  autobiographical 
sketches,  published  in  1854,  by  this  strange  and 
more  than  half-crazed  writer.  I  can  hardly  see 
anything  that  is  plainly  or  naturally  told,  nor  can 
I  find  a  single  fact  but  requires  confirmation. 

I  would  not  accuse  the  "  Opium-Eater  " — at 
least,  not  often — of  intentional,  deliberate  falsehood. 
As  his  friends  have  long  knovv'n,  the  man  is  incapable 
of  even  seeing  the  truth,  and  to  his  diseased  brain 
and  morbid  imagination  all  the  stories  he  has  in- 
vented of  himself  at  various  times,  within  these 
last  thirty  or  forty  years,  no  doubt  assumed  the 
character  of  the  most  perfect  and  unquestionable 
truths.  He  has  lied  so  long  to  himself  that  he  believes 
in  his  own  falsehoods  or  visions.  The  grandeur  of 
his  father,  the  English  merchant,  the  style  in  which 
his  mother  and  the  family  lived  after  his  father's 
death,  and  all  the  incidents  of  familiar  friendship 
with  the  great  and  noble  of  the  land,  are  exaggerated 
beyond  all  discretion. 

This  was  always,  and  still  is,  one  of  his  greatest 
weaknesses.  He  would  impress  the  world  with  the 
belief  that  his  family  and  family  connections  were 
highly  aristocratic  people.  To  further  this  delusion, 
and  to  gratify  his  own  eye  and  ear,  he  affixed  the 
aristocratic  De  to  his  name.  His  father  called  him- 
self Quincey,  and  old  Mrs.  C.  of  Clifton-by-Bristol, 
and  a  good  many  other  old  gentlewomen  of  that 


CHAP,  viii]       HIS  BIRTH  AT  WRINGTON         79 

mother;  who,  then  at  least,  never  went  by  any  other 
name  than  that  of  Mrs.  Quincey,  a  common  name 
enough  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  I  cannot  see 
that  in  any  place  he  correctly  states  where  he  was 
born.  This  event  certainly  came  off  at  Wrington, 
a  pleasant  village  between  Bristol  and  the  Cheddar 
Hills,  which  has  also  the  honour  of  being  the  birth- 
place of  Locke.  The  village  is  at  a  short  distance 
from  Cowshp  Green,  so  long  the  residence  of  Hannah 
More;  it  has  a  fine  old  church  with  a  very  massive 
square  tower. 

I  passed  a  day  at  Wrington  in  the  autumn  of  1840, 
and  conversed  with  a  good  many  people  who  had 
known  the  Quinceys.  To  hear  the  Opium-Eater 
talk  of  his  mother,  while  she  was  yet  alive,  one  could 
hardly  help,  while  carried  away  by  his  eloquence  or 
verbosity,  and  the  deep,  solemn  tones  of  his  voice, 
fancying  her  a  duchess  or  something  still  greater. 
As  Dr.  Johnson  said  of  Queen  Anne,  by  whom  in 
his  childhood  he  had  been  touched  for  the  King's 
Evil,  I  could  hardly  avoid  having  a  vision  of  a  lady 
in  black  velvet  and  diamonds,  as  one  night,  after 
supper  at  John  Wilson  the  poet's,  he  held  forth  on 
the  subject  of  the  maternal  genius,  virtues,  and 
dignity.  Now  Mrs.  Quincey  was  a  gentlewomanly 
English  gentlewoman  enough,  and  nothing  more; 
and  as  for  her  fortune  or  income,  it  was  hardly  more 
than  a  tithe  of  what  her  son  chose  to  represent  it. 
Many  and  many  were  the  pulls  he  made  upon  the 
poor  old  lady's  purse,  for  he  could  never  live  within 
his  own  limited  allowance,  and  could  very  seldom 
make  up  his  mind  to  earn  money  by  literary  labour 
or  any  other  kind  of  work. 

It  is  rather  annoying  to  see  this  confirmed  swiller 
of  laudanum,  this  man  so  dilatory,  so  procrastinating, 
so  infirm  of  purpose,  dwelling  with  critical  severity 
on  the  infirmities  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge.  He 
alleges  that  while  he  himself  was  forced  by  a  painful 
malady  to  have  recourse  to  opium,  and  to  continue 


8o  THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY     [chap,  viii 

the  practice  so  long  that  it  of  necessity  became  an 
incurable,  ineradicable  habit,  Coleridge  resorted  to  it 
merely  for  the  sake  of  mental  excitement,  and  of  the 
brilliant  visions  engendered  by  the  noxious  drug. 
Coleridge  told  a  different  tale,  and  Coleridge's  con- 
science would  never  have  permitted  him  to  publish 
a  book  like  De  Quincey's  "  Opium-Eater,"  which 
conveys  very  false  notions  of  the  operation  of  the 
poison,  and  which  certainly  had  the  effect  of  inducing 
many  to  become  eaters  of  opium  or  drinkers  of 
laudanum.  Through  the  agonies  of  tic  doloreux 
and  other  painful  maladies,  suffered  in  Italy,  at 
Smyrna,  at  Constantinople,  and  in  various  parts 
of  England  and  Scotland,  it  has  been  my  fate  to 
have  had  rather  an  extensive  experience  of  this 
narcotic  and  of  its  effects.  These  effects  vary  ad 
infinitum  according  to  the  infinite  variety  of  human 
constitution,  stomach,  and  nervous  system;  but  I 
never  knew  the  case  where  they  at  all  agreed  with 
De  Quincey's  descriptions.  In  me,  the  excitement  of 
the  night  was  always  followed  by  the  horrible  depres- 
sion of  the  morning;  and  the  brain,  instead  of  being 
clewed,  w^as  clouded.  I  forget,  at  the  moment,  the 
quantity  to  which  De  Quincey  carried  his  daily  dose 
— I  know  it  was  very  high ;  but  I  also  believe  that,  for 
the  sake  of  a  startling  effect,  he  made  it  much  more 
than  it  really  was.  He  could  do  nothing  without 
this  stimulant.  When  invited  out,  he  carried  his 
laudanum  bottle  with  him  to  dinner-table  and  supper- 
table.  This  used  greatly  to  annoy  John  Wilson, 
his  frequent  host,  and  at  that  time  the  most  jovial  of 
poets  and  of  men. 

"  Hang  you,  De  Quincey  !"  he  would  say.  "  Can't 
you  take  your  whisky  toddy  like  a  Christian  man, 

and  leave  your  d d  opium  slops  to  infidel  Turks, 

Persians,  and  Chinamen  ?" 

Whenever  he  had  engaged  to  write  a  magazine 
article  or  to  do  any  other  work  for  the  booksellers, 
those  gentlemen  were  almost  certain  to  receive  from 


CHAP,  viii]         HARTLEY  COLERIDGE  8i 

him,  in  a  day  or  two,  a  note  stating  that  he  was  out 
of  laudanum,  that  he  had  no  money  to  buy  more, 
that  he  could  not  go  on  with  the  work  without  his 
customary  supply  of  doses,  and  that  he  must  entreat 
them  to  advance  him  a  few  shillings  on  account. 
I  have  one  of  these  autographs  in  my  possession, 
and  may  insert  it  in  a  future  page.  At  times  his 
demands  were  not  quite  so  moderate,  and  when  he 
got  an}^  considerable  advance  it  was  pretty  certain 
the  publishers  would  never  get  the  work  out  of  him. 
He  made  them  feel,  with  a  vengeance,  what  is  called 
"  working  the  dead  horse." 

If  he  could  and  would  have  worked  like  other  men, 
he  might,  through  John  Wilson,  have  made  a  good 
annual  income  by  Blackwood's  Magazine  alone. 
After  many  trials  the  poet  was  obliged  to  give  him 
up.  And  what  did  the  Opium-Eater  do  then  ? 
Why,  he,  a  Tory  of  the  deepest  dye,  a  would-be 
aristocrat  of  the  first  water,  went  and  connected 
himself,  for  a  considerable  time,  with  an  ultra-Liberal 
Whig  Radical  publication.  Tail's  Magazine ,  in  which 
he  vented  a  good  deal  of  spite,  malice,  and  calumny, 
on  Wordsworth,  Mrs.  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and 
others  of  his  early  associates  and  close  friends. 

One  beautiful  morning,  as  we  were  walking  along 
the  banks  of  the  Grasmere  Lake,  Hartley  Coleridge 
said,  in  his  quick,  emphatic  way,  "  I  will  tell  you 
what  De  Quincey  is;  he  is  an  anomaly  and  a  contra- 
diction— a  contradiction  to  himself,  a  contradiction 
throughout  !  He  steals  the  aristocratic  '  de  ' ;  he 
announces  for  years  the  most  aristocratic  tastes, 
principles,  and  predilections,  and  then  he  goes  and 
marries  the  uneducated  daughter  of  a  very  humble, 
very  coarse,  and  very  poor  farmer.  He  continues 
to  be,  in  profession  and  in  talk,  as  violent  a  Tory 
and  anti-reformer  as  ever,  and  yet  he  writes  for  Tait. 
He  professed  almost  an  idolatry  for  Wordsworth 
and  for  my  father,  and  quite  a  filial  affection  for 
Mrs.  Wordsworth,  and  yet  you  see  how  he  is  treat- 


82  THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY     [chap,  viii 

ing  them  !  The  fellow  cannot  even  let  Mrs.  Words- 
worth's squint  alone  I  You  see  the  pains  he  has  taken 
to  describe  it  to  the  world  !  And  for  that  same  " — 
here  the  little  man  stamped  his  little  foot  on  the 
ground  in  a  manner  peculiar  to  himself — "  and  for 
that  same  I  should  not  be  very  unwilling  to  pitch 
the  Opium-Eater  into  this  lake  !" 

It  must  be  said  that  De  Quince}^  who  elaborated 
everything  he  did,  was  always  a  very  slow  writer. 
Had  he  been  firm  of  purpose,  persevering  and  steadily 
industrious,  instead  of  being  the  very  reverse  of  all 
this,  he  could,  to  all  appearance,  not  have  produced 
very  much,  but  he  might  have  produced  enough  to 
keep  himself  and  his  family  above  dependency  and 
a  wretched  mendicanc}^  When  Charles  Knight  w^as 
publishing  his  ''  Gallery  of  Portraits,"  a  book  of 
engravings  with  biographies  attached  to  them,  he 
engaged  De  Quincey  to  write  for  it,  as  G.  L.  Craik, 
Professor  De  Morgan,  Professor  George  Long,  and 
I  and  others  were  doing.  He  allowed  him  the  choice 
of  his  subjects.  For  a  beginning,  the  Opium-Eater 
chose  Milton.  Knowing  his  man,  C.  K.  took  him 
into  his  own  house,  a  comfortable  residence  in  Pall 
Mall  East,  gave  him  a  bedroom  and  study,  and 
supplied  him  with  all  the  books  he  required  for  his 
task.  He  spent  the  far  greater  part  of  his  time  in  bed, 
or  in  talking,  or  in  very  desultory  reading.  At  the 
end  of  three  months,  and  not  before,  the  Memoir  of 
Milton  was  finished.  It  would  not  make  more 
than  sixteen  ordinary  octavo  pages.  It  was  well 
thought  out,  it  was  abl}^  written;  but  no  more  than 
this  for  three  mortal  months  !  When  he  had  been 
nearly  a  week  in  the  house,  Mrs.  K.  could  not  but 
observe  that  his  clothes  were  almost  ragged,  and  that 
he  was  wearing  a  very  dirty  shirt.  She  spoke  to 
her  husband ;  and  he,  with  as  much  delicacy  as  he 
could  muster  for  the  occasion,  spoke  to  his  guest. 
"  Why,  to  tell  you  the  truth,"  said  Quincey  in  his 
slow,    solemn    manner    and    with    his    deep,    hoarse 


CHAP,  viii]       HIS  FAMILY  AT  LASSWADE       83 

voice — hoarse  from  the  effects  of  opium — "  to  tell 
you  the  truth,  I  have,  at  this  precise  moment,  no 
other  shirt  in  the  world.  I  left  my  last  but  one  in 
a  poor  lodging-house  in  the  Hampstead  Road, 
because  I  could  not  pay  for  my  night's  lodging." 

For  some  time  before  Knight  found  him  out  and 
took  him  in  tow,  he  had  been  lying  out  in  the  suburban 
fields,  or  sleeping  in  retired  doorways,  or  upon  bulk- 
heads, after  the  fashion  of  poor  Savage  the  poet. 

It  was  a  dangerous  thing  to  offer  him  a  dinner  and 
bed,  for  if  he  found  himself  at  all  comfortable  he 
would  never  think  of  moving  for  a  month  or  two. 
John  Wilson  told  me  one  evening  that  his  family 
were  literally  half  starving,  and  that  he  was  very 
much  afraid  the  children  had  found  their  way  to 
papa's  laudanum  bottle.  When  I  returned  to 
Edinburgh,  in  the  spring  of  1847,  I  inquired  after 
this  strange,  unaccountable  being.  "  Oh,"  said 
Wilson,  "  a  Glasgow  friend  invited  him  to  his  house 
about  six  months  ago,  and  there  he  has  been  ever 
since,  and  there  he  is  now,  taking  no  heed  of  his  poor 
children,  and  in  all  probability  never  giving  them  a 
thought."  For  all  that  he  did,  they  might  have 
died  of  starvation.  He  left  them  in  a  little  cottage  at 
that  pretty  little  village  of  Lasswade,  one  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  pet  places.  When  he  had  been  gone 
some  time,  the  minister  of  the  parish  observed  some 
children  begging  about  the  village  for  food,  and  look- 
ing both  sickly  and  hungry.  On  inquir\^  he  found 
that  they  were  the  luckless  progeny  of  the  Opium- 
Eater  !  The  minister  and  his  wife  supplied  their 
immediate  wants,  and  then  we  raised  a  small  fund 
for  them — in  Edinburgh,  where  their  father  has  had 
his  hand  in  nearly  every  man's  pocket.  And  yet, 
when  he  returns — if  he  ever  should  return — he  will 
come  spinning  eternal  sentences  about  the  strength, 
depth,  and  unimaginable  vivacity  of  his  paternal 
affections.  I  have  now  lost  all  patience  with  him. 
I  can  no  longer  tolerate  his  solemn  cant. 


84  JAMES  MATHIAS  [chap,  viii 


JAMES   MATHIAS 

For  a  good  number  of  years  I  was  rather  intimate 
with  the  author  of  "  The  Pursuits  of  Literature  " — 
that  is,  about  as  intimate  as  a  volatile  3^oung  man 
like  me,  at  that  period,  could  possibly  be  with  a 
sedate,  phlegmatic  old  man  like  Mathias.  I  think 
that  it  was  in  the  summer  of  1817  or  181 8  that  I 
first  met  him.  I  cannot  be  quite  sure  of  the  date, 
but  I  can  never  forget  the  place.  It  was  that  lovel}^ 
village-dotted  plain,  between  the  mountains  and  the 
sea,  //  piano  di  Sorrento,  in  that  quiet,  shady  nook, 
embosomed  in  groves  of  orange  and  citron  trees, 
called  "  La  Cociunella.^'  He  was  staying  there  in 
the  same  rambling,  quaint  old  lodging-house  which 
I  believe  had  once  been  a  nunnery,  with  Mariana 
Starke,  authoress  of  the  well-known  guide-book  for 
English  travellers  on  the  Continent,  which  after  a 
long  run,  and  a  very  extensive  sale,  has  been  super- 
seded by  Mr.  Murray's  excellent  handbooks.  We 
sat  for  an  hour  or  two  on  a  rustic  seat  at  the  edge 
of  an  orange-grove  which  overhung  the  sea  and 
commanded  a  full  view  of  the  bay,  Mount  Vesuvius, 
with  the  lofty  ridges  of  the  Apennines  in  its  rear,  the 
whole  of  the  city  of  Naples,  with  the  castles  and 
monasteries,  behind  it  and  above  it,  the  enchanting 
promontory  of  Posilipo,  the  Cape  of  Misenum,  the 
coast  of  Baise,  the  low,  bright,  glittering  island  of 
Procida,  and  the  lofty,  volcanic  island  of  Ischia — 
a  view  which  I  shall  always  maintain,  and  religiously 
believe,  to  be  the  finest  in  the  beautiful  globe  which 
God  has  allotted  to  us  for  a  habitation.  We  talked 
a  good  deal  about  living  or  recent  English  poets, 
and  I  well  remember  that  he  gently  reproved  my  too 
warm  admiration  for  Lord  Byron,  an  error  which 
has  long  since  been  corrected  by  time,  experience, 
knowledge  of  the  world,  and  careful  study  of  our 
truly    classical    writers.     He    stood    up    stoutly    in 


CHAP,  viii]     RESEMBLANCE  TO  GRAY  85 

defence  of  Gray  both  as  a  man  and  as  a  poet,  and  was 
quite  indignant  with  old  Samuel  Johnson  for  having 
written  what  he  had  about  poor  Gray.  I  should 
think  that  in  person,  as  well  as  in  most  of  his  tastes 
and  habits,  Mathias  must  have  very  much  resembled 
the  author  of  the  "  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard." 
He  was  a  fragile-looking,  spare  old  man ;  his  head 
was  almost  entirely  bald,  and  the  little  hair  he  had 
was  very  grey  and  fast  turning  into  white.  Yet  he 
was  active  and  capable  of  enduring  a  good  deal  of 
fatigue,  and  thus  he  continued  to  be  eight  or  nine 
years  after  this  meeting.  He  walked  about  a  good 
deal ;  indeed,  I  hardly  ever  saw  him  ride  in  a  hackney- 
carriage  or  vehicle  of  any  kind.  I  soon  met  him 
again  at  Naples,  at  a  dinner  party  given  by  my  old 
friend  James  Ramsay,  then  a  prosperous  and  very 
hospitable  merchant,  and  fond  of  literature  and  men 
of  letters.  A  considerable  time  after  this  I  met  him 
one  morning  in  the  house  of  Sir  William  Drummond, 
the  diplomatist  and  author  of  "  Academical  Ques- 
tions," "  Origines,"  etc.,  and  I  heard  him  manfully 
maintain  the  cause  of  Christianity  and  the  English 
Church,  to  neither  of  which  Sir  William  was  thought 
to  be  much  attached.  We  met  again  at  old  General 
Grant's — he  of  Jamaica — and  between  the  end  of 
the  year  1820  and  the  spring  of  1827  we  were  very 
frequently  encountering  each  other.  Indeed,  for 
nearly  two  years  out  of  that  time,  we  lived  under 
the  same  roof,  in  a  big  palazzo  upon  the  Pizzofalconey 
which  had  in  its  rear  a  fantastic  old-fashioned  garden, 
with  wooden  statues  of  shepherds  and  shepherdesses, 
river  divinities,  and  nymphs  of  the  fountain,  all 
painted  over  in  the  brightest  colours.  As  his  apart- 
ment, and  also  mine,  opened  upon  the  garden  by 
a  French  window,  we  often  met,  and  walked  and 
talked  there.  I  thought  it  rather  strange  that  he 
should  admire  the  place  and  its  decorations.  It 
was  like  a  suburban  tea-garden — very  like  what 
our  Bagnigge  Wells  used  to  be  when  I  was  a  little 


86  JAMES  MATHIAS  [chap,  viii 

boy.  But  in  sundry  other  matters  I  thought  that 
the  tastes  of  the  author  of  the  **  Pursuits  of  Litera- 
ture "  were  rather  artificial. 

He  had  been  writing  and  pubhshing  various  original 
Italian  poems,  and  he  was  now  turning  the  first  two 
cantos  of  the  "Faery  Queene  "  into,  Italian  ottava 
rima . 

He  did  this  kind  of  work  very  slowly.  I  have 
heard  him  say  that  he  considered  eight  verses  to  be 
a  very  good  day's  work.  He  had  but  a  scanty 
library,  and  in  it  only  one  book  of  a  fine  edition. 
This  was  an  edition  of  Gray's  works,  the  quarto 
printed  at  Glasgow  by  Foulis,  and  alluded  to  in 
the  poet's  letters.  Mathias  had  illustrated  it  with 
a  variety  of  engravings — English,  French,  Italian, 
and  German ;  for  in  nearly  every  country  in  Europe 
the  Elegy  had  lent  inspiration  to  artists  as  well  as 
to  poets.  He  could  be  very  thankful  for  any  contri- 
bution to  this  quarto.  At  the  time  I  had  not  many 
books  myself,  but  I  had  admirable  facilities  for 
borrowing  from  the  Prince  of  Colonna  Stigliano, 
the  Duke  of  Atri,  the  Prince  of  San  Giorgio,  and 
about  a  dozen  more  Neapolitan  friends,  who  had 
inherited  libraries  and  were  annually  increasing  them. 
Then  the  admirable  public  library  in  the  Bourbon 
Museum,  with  its  400,000  volumes,  was  always  open 
to  me,  with  the  indulgence  of  a  private  room  all  to 
myself.  I  now  and  then  borrowed  for  Mathias, 
and  would  have  done  so  much  oftener  if  he  had 
wished  it,  but  he  appeared  to  me  to  read  very  little. 
What  he  liked,  was  to  con  over  his  Italian  rhymes,* 
take  a  peep  at  his  classics,  and  to  muse  and  meditate 
in  the  garden,  or  in  his  room,  or  while  walking,  at 
a  brisk  pace,  in  the  streets  and  suburbs  of  Naples. 
We  should  have  been  together  much  more  frequently 

*  I  have  a  copy  of  Mathias'  "  Poesie  Liriche,"  2  vols.,  octavo, 
Naples,  1825,  inscribed  in  the  author's  handwriting,  "  Alia  cul- 
tissima  Signora,  La  Signora  S.  Canning,  Da  T.  J.  Mathias,  Napoh, 
Marzo,  1829." — Ed. 


CHAP,  viii]  AS  LIBRARIAN  87 

than  we  were,  but  for  one  little  circumstance:  he 
rarely  went  into  Italian  society,  and  I  as  rarely  went 
into    English.     Now    and    then    we   would    meet    at 
dinner  at   an   excellent  restaurant,  nearly  opposite 
the  Royal  Palace,  near  the  corner  of  the  Strada  di 
Chiaja,  but  this  did  not  happen  often,  for  I  was  a 
great   diner-out,  and   the  old   gentleman,  who  was 
very  fond  of  a  good  dinner,  was  a  bit  of  a  Monsieur 
Pique-assiette,  and   liked   it   best   when   it   cost   him 
nothing,  and  there  were  always  plenty  of  English 
families  too  happy  to  have  his  company  and  to  be 
his  Amphitryons.     I   could  not  conscientiously  say 
that  I  found  he  had  much  heart,  or  that  his  temper 
was  very  good.     When   I   first  knew  him,  he  was 
rather  in  straitened  circumstances,  having,  I  believe, 
little  beyond   a  mediocre  pension  from  our  Court, 
for  having  once  acted  as  Librarian  and  Secretary 
to  Her  Majesty  old  Queen  Charlotte;  but  in   1821 
he  began  to  receive  an  additional  ;£ioo  per  annum 
from  the  Royal  Society  of  Literature,  founded  by 
George  IV.     This,  in  a  country  like  Naples,  set  him 
quite  at  his  ease.     But,  in  his  very  old  age,  in  1830, 
on  the  death  of  George  IV.,  and  on  the  accession  of 
William   IV.,  or  so  soon  after  those  events  as  the 
Whigs  scrambled   into   office,   the   royal   grant   was 
withheld,  and  Mathias,  hke  poor  Coleridge  and  eight 
others,  was  deprived   of  that   valuable  supply.     A 
hard  case  I  but  quite  in  accordance  with  the  spirit 
and  genius  of  Whiggery.     He  lived  on  for  some  years 
after  this  blow. 

Once  at  that  restaurant  I  saw  him  greatly  ruffled 
and  excited.  A  young  Austrian  officer,  who  had  been 
taking  rather  too  much  champagne,  fell  into  a 
passion  and  broke  an  empty  bottle  over  the  head 
of  a  waiter — a  real  Roman,  if  you  please  1  We 
were  seated  at  a  table  just  opposite,  and  a  fragment 
of  the  bottle  fell  among  our  plates  and  dishes,  and 
nearly  struck  the  old  bard,  who  turned  very  pale, 
and   then  fell  into   a  passion   himself.     He  was  for 


88  JAMES  MATHIAS  [chap,  viii 

going  at  once  to  the  officer's  Colonel;  nay,  he  would 
go  at  once  to  General  Frimont,  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  he  would  have  satisfaction  for  the  outrage; 
he  certainly  cared  a  great  deal  more  for  his  own  risk 
and  the  disrespect  offered  to  him,  than  for  the  Roman's 
head,  which,  indeed,  was  very  little  hurt,  for  the 
fellow  had  on  a  cloth  cap.  I  remonstrated,  and  tried 
to  soothe  him.  If  he  had  laid  his  complaint,  the 
officer  would  have  been  severely  dealt  with,  and  the 
young  man,  a  very  handsome  fellow,  a  native  of 
Transylvania,  who  met  his  death  about  a  year  after 
this  by  falling  backwards  over  the  first  landing- 
place  at  the  Theatre  of  San  Carlo,  had  been  for 
some  time  my  intimate  associate,  if  not  friend. 
The  Roman  had  been  exceedingly  insolent  to  him, 
and  I  had  overheard  the  words  which  had  so  provoked 
him.  I  went  and  brought  him  across  the  room  to 
apologize  to  the  old  gentleman,  which  he  did  in  a 
proper  style,  and  in  very  good  French ;  but  unfortu- 
nately the  poet  was  not  accustomed  to  speak  French, 
and  not  very  quick  in  understanding  it  when  spoken. 
His  brow  continued  to  be  clouded,  and  it  was  not 
brightened  by  the  waiter  bringing  in  the  conto. 
However,  in  the  end  I  succeeded  in  my  object,  and 
Mathias,  instead  of  going  to  the  Colonel  or  to  the 
General,  went  on  with  me,  just  across  the  way,  to 
the  Opera  House.  He  was  a  great  frequenter  of 
that  house,  one  of  the  most  constant  of  its  habitues, 
being  exceedingl}^  fond  of  Italian  music  and  ballets 
d' action.  He  hired  one  of  the  numbered  reserved 
seats  in  the  pit,  by  the  year,  and  all  the  other  pit 
habitues  treated  the  old  man  with  great  respect  and 
kindness.  Having  many  friends  who  had  their 
boxes,  to  which  there  was  free  access  without  any 
payment,  and  without  any  ceremony  after  you  had 
been  once  invited,  I  was  an  habitue  of  the  boxes, 
and  night  after  night,  week  after  week,  year  after 
year,  on  looking  down  into  the  pit,  I  was  sure  to 
see  the  spare  form,  and  lustrous,  shining  bald  pate 


CHAP,  viii]  "  PURSUITS  OF  LITERATURE  "      89 

of  the  author  of  the  "  Pursuits  of  Literature,"  not 
unfrequently  indicating  by  its  oscillations  and  nod- 
dings  that  the  poet,  soothed  and  lulled  by  the  music, 
was  indulging  in  a  nap. 

Ischitella's  daughter,  who  knew  him  through  me, 
and  who  often  watched  him  in  the  pit,  used  to  call 
his  bald  pate  il  lampione,  or  the  great  lamp,  and  when 
San  Carlo  was  fully  illuminated  on  Court  Festival 
nights,  it  really  shone  almost  as  brightly  as  a  lamp. 
His  seat  was  just  under  Ischitella's*  box.  I  see  it 
and  its  occupant  still;  I  shall  never  lose  the  vision 
of  old  Mathias's  pate.  He  would  never  acknowledge 
the  fact,  perfectly  well  known  to  all  literary  people, 
that  he  was  the  sole  author  of  the  "  Pursuits  of 
Literature,"  and  he  could  never,  with  anything  like 
patience,  hear  that  book  spoken  of  or  alluded  to. 
One  day,  in  our  snug  and  trim  garden,  before  I  knew 
of  this  peculiarity,  I  asked  him  if  he  had  a  copy  of 
that  book,  as  I  had  not  seen  it  for  many  years, 
and  wished  to  improve  my  acquaintance  with  it. 
"  No,  sir  I"  said  he,  very  sharply  and  almost  angrily. 
"  No,  sir  !  I  have  no  such  book,  nor  do  I  know  any- 
body that  has,  nor  do  I  care  to  know  anything 
about  it  !"  I  uttered  an  apology,  and  retreated 
to  my  own  rooms.  That  evening,  at  an  English 
party,  he  told  my  friend  Mrs.  I.  that  he  thought 
me  rather  an  impertinent  young  fellow. 

However,  I  soon  got  over  this.  I  wrote  a  short 
review  of  his  version  of  Spenser,  and  of  some  other 
of  his  pieces,  which  was  published,  if  I  remember 
right,  in  the  old  London  Magazine.  A  friend  showed 
him  this,  and  it  had  the  good  fortune  to  please  the 
tetchy,  very  fastidious  old  poet.  But  we  had  our 
little  tiffs  afterwards.  I  could  go  almost  entirely 
along  with  him  in  his  worship  of  Gray.  I  could  fully 
agree   with    him    that    in    everything   Gray    had    an 

*  Don  Francesco  Pinto,  Prince  of  Ischitella,  Minister  of  War, 
"  Resided  long  in  England  "  (C.  M.:  Letter  to  Lord  Aberdeen. 
1851). 


90  JAMES  MATHIAS  [chap,  viii 

exquisite  taste,  and  that  his  letters  are  our  best; 
but  I  could  not  be  led  along  by  him  into  an  en- 
thusiastic admiration  of  Mason's  "  Elfrida  "  and 
"  Caractacus." 

It  will  be  inferred,  from  what  I  have  said,  that 
old  Mathias  had  neither  "  chick  nor  child."  He 
had  never  been  married,  and  I  can  scarcely  believe 
in  the  possibility  of  his  ever  having  been  in  love. 
Like  every  old  bachelor  I  have  known,  with  the 
single  and  glorious  exception  of  Mountstuart  Elphin- 
stone,  he  was  amazingly  attentive  to  his  own  comforts, 
great  or  small,  and  eminently  selfish.  An  accom- 
plished scholar  he  certainly  was,  but  I  should  hesitate 
to  call  him  a  man  of  genius.  His  English  poem, 
the  "  Pursuits  of  Literature,"  is  but  a  tame,  colour- 
less production,  and  but  for  its  foot-notes,  which  make 
ten  times  the  quantity  of  the  verses,  it  would  never 
be  looked  at.  In  these  notes,  in  addition  to  a  large 
amount  of  classical  and  other  learning,  there  is  a 
considerable  quantity  of  fun  and  quiet  sarcasm. 
The  hit  at  poor  Poet-Laureate  Pye  will  not  be 
forgotten.  "  Mr.  Pye,  the  present  Poet-Laureate, 
with  the  best  intentions  at  this  momentous  period, 
if  not  with  the  very  best  poetry,  translated  the  verses 
of  Tyrtaeus  the  Spartan.  They  were  designed  to 
produce  animation  throughout  the  kingdom,  and 
among  the  militia  in  particular. 

Several  of  the  Reviewing  Generals — I  do  not 
mean  the  monthly  or  critical — were  much  impressed 
with  their  weight  and  importance,  and,  at  a  Board 
of  General  Officers,  an  experiment  was  agreed  upon, 
which  unfortunately  failed.  They  were  read  aloud 
at  Warley  Common  and  at  Barham  Downs  by  the 
adjutants,  at  the  head  of  five  different  regiments 
at  each  camp,  and  much  was  expected.  But  before 
they  were  half  finished,  all  the  front  ranks,  and  as 
many  others  as  were  within  hearing  or  verse-shot, 
dropped  their  arms  suddenly,  and  were  all  found 
fast   asleep  !     Marquis   Townshend,   who   never   ap- 


CHAP,  viii]        HIS  ITALIAN  POEMS  91 

proved  of  the  scheme,  said,  with  his  usual  pleasantry, 
that  the  first  of  all  poets  observed  "  that  Sleep  is  the 
brother  of  Death,"  1796. 

I  left  Mathias  at  Naples,  in  May,  1827,  when  I 
was  going  to  Sicily,  Malta,  Greece,  and  Turkey.* 
He  was  living  up  on  the  Pizzo falconer  in  the  same 
quiet,  retired  apartment  which  opened  upon  the 
queer  little  garden  and  its  gods  and  goddesses,  and 
there  he  continued  to  live  for  some  years  longer, 
reading  very  little,  scarcely  anything  English,  and 
conning  his  Italian  rhymes.  I  was  vexed  and  grieved 
when  I  heard  that  the  stopping  of  his  ;{;ioo  a  year 
made  him  feel  the  res  angnsta  dorni,  and  deprived 
him  of  many  of  the  little  pleasures  which  had  become 
habits  of  his  life.  He  never  spoke  Italian  very 
fluently.  I  suppose  that  in  England,  shut  out  from 
the  Continent  by  the  wars  of  the  French  Republic 
and  then  of  Bonaparte,  he  had  few  opportunities 
of  speaking  it  until  he  was  advanced  in  years;  but 
he  could  write  it  with  great  correctness  and  propriety, 
and  in  a  manner  to  astonish  the  natives  when  they 
considered  that  he  was  a  foreigner,  and  one  who  had 
never  set  his  foot  on  their  soil  until  he  was  an  old 
man.  Yet  Italian  critics  would  say  that  his  "  Rime  " 
were  little  more  than  a  work  in  mosaic,  being  made 
up  of  an  expression  of  Dante  here,  of  Petrarca  there, 
of  a  bit  of  Ariosto  in  this  line,  a  bit  of  Tasso  in  that, 
and  so  on  through  the  "  Testi  di  Lingua  "  or  Italian 
classics,  and  though  very  cleverly  and  gracefully 
put  together,  the  pieces  and  component  parts  of 
this  mosaic,  of  so  many  different  ages  and  of  so  many 
and  varied  styles,  produced  a  rather  incongruous 
and  unpleasant  effect.  At  the  time,  when  I  was 
reading  a  great  deal  more  of  Italian  poetry  than  of 
any  other,  I  fancied  I  could  myself  detect  the  in- 
congruity and  the  artificiality.  I  may  say  that, 
at  the  very  least,  I  could  see  that  Mathias 's"  Rime," 

*  This  sentence  in  C.  M.'s  handwriting.     Mathias  was  visited 
here  by  N.  P.  WilUs  {cf.  "  Pencillings  by  the  Way,"  1850), 


92  JAMES  MATHIAS  [chap,  viii 

ne  coulaient  pas  de  source.'*  He  was  "  Pastor e 
Arcado,"  an  Arcadian  shepherd,  with  the  crook  of 
the  Roman  Academy,  a  sort  of  Florentine  Delia 
Crusca.  I  wish  I  could  see  again  his  bald,  shining 
pate  in  the  pit  at  San  Carlo.  But  he  has  been  lying 
for  years  in  the  Enghsh  cemetery  just  outside  the 
city  of  Naples. 


CHAPTER  IX 

MISS    MARTINEAU 

This  lady  is  "  unhappily  indifferent  to  the  truth  of 
revelation,  yet  exercises  the  wildest  flights  of  fancy 
in  constructing  something  like  a  new  scheme  of 
theogony  suitable  to  the  ruins  of  Egypt .  Pronouncing 
Moses  an  impostor,  she  gives  implicit  credit  to  that 
convicted  charlatan,  the  '  Magician  '  of  Cairo — nay, 
even  at  home,  believes  in  the  supernatural  powers 
of  a  cunning  servant-girl  "  {Quarterly  Review,  clxxxi.). 
I  met  this  rampant  rationalist,  this  prophetess  of 
mesmerism,  this  ill-favoured,  dogmatizing,  masculine 
spinster  but  once,  and  that  was  at  a  large  dinner 
party  of  literary  people,  where  I  had  the  good  fortune 
to  be  seated  far  away  from  her.  I  disliked  the  tend- 
ency of  her  writings,  and  I  was  disgusted  with  her 
personal  appearance,  her  loquacity,  and  her  positive- 
ness  on  all  subjects  and  things.  My  friend.  Lord 
Brougham,  was  made  very  angry  one  day  by  being 
told  that  people  were  saying  that  Miss  Martineau 
was,  in  person,  so  like  his  lordship  that  she  might 
be  taken  for  his  sister  !  Brougham,  as  everybody 
knows,  was  never  a  beauty  of  a  man;  but,  compared 
with  Miss  Martineau,  his  face  was  charming,  and 
Brougham  had  always  the  look  and  bearing  of  a 
gentleman,  while  the  spinster  had  not  at  all  the 
appearance  of  a  lady. 

How  she  did  talk  and  "  argufy  "  at  that  dinner  ! 
She  was  as  deaf  as  a  post,  and  made  use  of  an  ivory 
ear-trumpet,  attached  to  a  long  flexible  tube,  which 
looked  very  much  like  a  snake,  and  which  she  was 


94  MISS  MARTINEAU  [chap,  ix 

constantly  throwing  across  the  table  to  some  one 
or  other  of  her  interlocutors.  I  would  not  have  been 
within  reach  of  that  tube  for  a  trifle.  Years  after 
this  meeting,  I  might  have  met  her  frequently  at 
Charles  Knight's,  where,  for  a  long  while,  she  was 
very  intimate;  but  I  always  avoided  the  house 
w^hen  I  knew  that  she  was  there.  One  day  she  wanted 
to  cure  Margaret  K.  of  a  violent  attack  of  toothache 
by  means  of  mesmerism;  but,  upon  trial,  she  com- 
pletely failed.  To  me  it  seemed  that  after  a  visit 
of  any  length,  she  always  left  the  odour  of  some  of 
her  bad  principles  behind  her.  I  do  not  believe  that 
either  Mrs.  K.,  or  any  one  of  her  daughters  was 
infected  thereby ;  but  she  certainly  had  an  evil  effect 
and  influence  over  the  impressionable,  changeable, 
volatile  mind  of  Knight  himself.  When  I  first  knew 
that  clever,  extraordinary  man — and  he  was,  and  is, 
extraordinary  in  many  w^ays — he  was  far  gone  in 
radicalized  Whiggery,  was  clamorous  for  the  Reform 
Bill,  and  was  read}^  to  advocate  almost  any  innova- 
tion in  Church  or  State.  But  years  seemed  to  have 
sobered  him  down,  and  my  collaborateur,  George 
Craik,  and  I,  and  one  or  two  others  who  were  Con- 
servatives and  very  much  in  his  society,  flattered 
ourselves  that  we  had  aided  in  his  political  con- 
version, and  had  brought  him  to  be  nearly  as  con- 
servative as  ourselves.  I  have  often  heard  him  and 
his  great  friend  Matthew  Davenport  Hill,  w^ho  had 
taken  a  very  active  part  in  carrying  out  reform, 
declare  the  Reform  Bill  to  have  been  a  mistake, 
and  Municipal  Reform  to  have  been  another.  Both 
Hill  and  Knight  had  been  shabbily  treated  and  ill- 
used  by  the  Whig  Reform  Government.  W^hen  I 
started  for  Turkey  in  the  summer  of  1847,  I  thought 
I  left  Knight  on  the  right  road,  "  et  dans  des  bons 
principes  politiques  ";  but  when  I  returned  in  the 
autumn  of  1848,  I  found  him  relapsed  into  Liberalism. 
In  the  interval  Craik  had  been  living  on  his  History 
Professorship  at  Belfast  and  Knight  had  quarrelled 


CHAP.  IX]  AS  HISTORIAN  95 

with  the  other  Conservatives;  he  had  cut  himself 
quite  off  from  his  old  friends,  and  had  formed  new 
and  sudden  intimacies,  with  men  like  Charles  Dickens, 
Mr."  Examiner "Forster,DouglasJerrold,T. K.Harvey 
the  poet — then  editing  the  Athenceum — and  others 
of  that  school :  men  who  were,  one  and  all,  enemies 
to  the  Established  Church  of  England,  and  friends 
to  every  rash  experiment  in  politics,  whether  at 
home  or  abroad.  Moreover,  during  my  absence, 
he  had  contracted  the  closest  intimacy  with  Miss 
Martineau,  who  had  been  living  a  great  deal  in  his 
family,  and  had  engaged  her  to  do  what  I  in  justice 
ought  to  have  done,  that  is,  to  write  the  history 
of  the  thirty  years'  peace,  as  a  continuation  to  the 
history  of  the  reign  of  George  III.,  which  stopped 
at  the  Battle  of  Waterloo  and  the  Peace  of  Paris, 
and  had  been  written  by  Craik  and  me.  Nobody 
but  Knight  would  have  thought  of  employing  such 
a  writer  for  the  continuation. 

The  woman's  politics  and  other  principles  were 
wide  as  the  poles  asunder.  Knight  very  soon  and 
financially  found  out  his  mistake.  Those  who  ad- 
mired Miss  Martineau 's  doing  could  not  tolerate  ours; 
and  those  who  liked  what  we  had  done  detested  the 
tone  and  spirit  of  Miss  Martineau.  The  book  did 
not  sell,  and  for  a  time  it  seriously  impeded  the  sale 
of  ours.  Her  performance  was  suited  only  to  the 
taste  of  Radicals  and  Unitarians;  and  these  classes, 
though  they  are  great  in  the  noise  and  bustle  they 
make,  and  as  seen  through  the  dust  they  kick  up, 
are  in  reality  neither  so  numerous  nor  so  liberal  as 
book-purchasers  as  some  good  people  imagine.  By 
the  scandalous  way  in  which  she  handled  the  character 
and  memory  of  the  late  Premier,  Lord  Londonderry, 
and  by  other  calumnious  and  violent  diatribes,  she 
merited  the  words  that  were  applied  to  her  by  John 
Wilson  Croker  in  the  Quarterly  Review:  "The  false, 
foul,  and  unfeminine  pen  of  Miss  Martineau." 

Not  long  after  my  return  from  the  East,  I  heard 


96  MISS  MARTINEAU  [chap,  ix 

that  Knight  and  his  "  chere  Harriette  "  had  had  a 
quarrel  which  ended  in  a  downright  rupture.  I  knew 
how  it  would  be.  C.  K.'s  sudden  intimacies  and 
spasmodic  friendships  always  ended  in  that  way. 
Since  then  he  has  quarrelled  with  Dickens,  Jerrold, 
and  all  that  set ;  but  I  cannot  see  or  hear  that  he  has 
renounced  their  principles,  or  that  he  has  at  all 
moderated  his  rekindled  Whiggery  or  Liberalism. 
He  and  I  are  now  quite  estranged,  but  I  have  not 
a  grain  of  spite  or  ill-will  against  him,  for  I  have  a 
sincere  affection  for  his  family,  w^ith  whom  I  was 
most  intimately  associated  for  the  long  term  of 
eighteen  years.  With  a  little  more  ballast,  with  a 
little  more  fixity  of  purpose  and  principle,  and  a  great 
deal  less  of  his  evil  associations,  Charles  Knight,  now 
a  very  poor  man,  might  have  been  prosperous  and 
even  wealthy,  and  might  also  have  obtained  a  very 
good  standing  as  a  man  of  letters.  But  I  must  say 
that  with  his  innate  and  contracted  defects  he  has 
proved  himself,  in  spite  of  his  ready  arithmetic  and 
great  skill  in  every  kind  of  calculation,  about  the 
worst  man  of  business  that  has  ever  belonged  to  the 
"  Trade,"  or  that  has  ever  speculated,  in  any  other 
line,  with  his  own,  or  other  people's,  money.  Through 
him — and  I  may  say  almost  entirely  through  him — 
I  find  myself,  in  fast-coming  old  age,  and  with  many 
and  increasing  infirmities,  depourvu  de  tout,  3,  ruined 
man.  But  I  repeat,  I  nourish  no  spite,  I  scarcely 
feel  resentment.  I  would  say,  "  May  peace  be  with 
my  old  ally  !" — but  Charles  Knight  will  never  know 
peace  on  this  side  the  grave.  Let  me  return  to 
Harriet  Martineau. 

What  could  ever  have  induced  this  raisonneuse, 
this  esprit  fort,  this  downright  sceptic,  to  travel 
through  the  Desert  in  the  track  of  Moses  and  his 
Israelites,  and  to  go  to  the  Holy  Land  and  to  Jeru- 
salem ?  That  she  should  have  gone  into  Egypt, 
being  furnished  as  she  was  with  the  means  of  doing 
so  in  a  comfortable  manner,   that  she  should  have 


CHAP.  IX]         IN  THE  HOLY  LAND  97 

visited  the  Pyramids  and  Catacombs,  and  that  she 
should  have  foregathered  with  the  mummies  and 
stuffed  crocodiles,  would  have  been  quite  natural, 
and  not  out  of  keepmg  with  her  sentiments  and 
ch  racter;  but,  in  the  name  of  all  that  is  holy  there, 
what  had  she,  or  one  like  her,  to  do  in  the  Holy 
Land,  at  the  tomb  of  Christ  !  I  know  a  part  of 
what  she  did,  while  there:  she  scoffed  at  everything, 
she  grimly  laughed  at  all  the  local  traditions,  and 
she  maintained  long  arguments  in  political  economy, 
and  about  the  too  fast  propagation  of  the  human 
species — the  last  being  a  subject  on  which  she  thinks 
herself  very  luminous.  My  thoroughly  believing,  my 
pious,  and  at  the  same  time  very  romantic  friend,  the 
Rev.  H.  E.  W.,  whose  head  and  heart  are  full  of 
Scripture,  and  who  has  a  faith  even  in  legends,  had 
the  infelicity  of  having  this  unsympathetic  female 
for  one  of  his  travelling  companions.  They  crossed 
the  Desert  together,  and  they  encamped  together  at 
night,  tent  by  tent.  She  wore  an  Eastern  male 
dress.  Together  they  ascended  Mount  Sinai,  and  they 
were  together  at  Jerusalem,  at  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre,  on  Mount  Calvary,  at  Golgotha,  and 
at  all  those  sanctified  places. 

She  taunted  my  friend,  and  she  reasoned  with 
what  she  thought  his  downright  idolatry  and  blind 
superstition;  and  because  he  took  care  not  to  insult 
the  religious  feelings  of  either  the  Greek  priests  and 
monks  nor  the  Latin  monks  and  priests,  but  to  conform 
to  some  of  the  local  usages  and  practices,  she  after- 
wards showed  him  up  in  her  book  of  travels,  and 
in  a  way  to  make  him  recognizable  to  all  his  numerous 
friends  and  acquaintances,  and  to  many  besides  who 
were  neither,  and  ready  enough  to  get  up  an  outcry 
against  him  on  account  of  his  Puseyism.  My  dear 
friend  is  far  too  good  a  Christian  and  too  perfect  a 
gentleman  to  resent  conduct  like  this,  or  to  indulge 
in  any  animosity.  The  harshest  words  I  have  ever 
heard  him  say  of  her  were  these:  "  Miss  Martineau 


98  WILLIAM  GODWIN  [chap,  ix 

worships  Reason  !  She  sets  up  poor  faUible  human 
reason  for  her  god.  I  hope  that  she  ma}^  hve  to  find 
out  her  sad  mistake." 


WILLIAM  GODWIN 

Old  God\\dn  greatly  preferred  a  quiet  game  of  whist 
in  a  cosy  corner,  to  conversation.  In  his  manner  he 
was  a  quiet,  retiring,  unpretentious  old  gentleman. 
At  first  I  was  rather  surprised  to  discover  how  much 
he  had  modified  many  of  his  political  opinions,  and 
how  completely  he  had  changed  others.  Some  of 
his  books  had  been  dogmatical  and  positive  enough ; 
but  now  he  never  dogmatized,  and  to  his  ver}^  utmost 
shunned  argument  and  discussion.  A  flippant  young 
man  asked  him  one  evening,  "  What  are  your  fixed 
opinions?"  ''Sir,"  said  Godwin,  "I  have  none; 
I  left  off  my  fixed  opinions  with  my  youth." 

During  the  season  of  the  great  combustion  about 
the  Reform  Bill,  little  Martin,  the  painter,  took 
violently  to  politics.  He  would  insist  upon  pledges 
from  every  candidate,  or  from  every  member  about 
to  be  returned  to  the  House  of  Commons;  he  would 
have  no  man  give  his  vote  wdthout  being  sure  of 
the  pledge  that  the  honourable  gentleman  would 
vote  in  Parliament  as  his  constituents  required,  or 
vacate  his  seat.  Martin  had,  on  the  whole,  a  con- 
sentient audience,  for  the  party  (with  a  supper  after- 
wards) was  in  his  own  house,  and  the  listeners  were 
either  artists  or  second  or  third  rate  authors,  a 
class  about  as  radical  as  the  artists.  But  Alaric 
Watts  stood  stoutly  up  in  opposition.  "  How  !"  said 
Martin,  "  all  that  I  have  said  is  in  Godwin's  '  Political 
Justice,'  and  here  is  Godwin,  who  will  bear  me  out." 
Godwin,  who  was  just  sitting  down  to  his  parti  carre, 
said  that  he  might  forget,  but  he  did  not  think  he 
had  written  anything  of  the  sort ;  that  if  he  had  done 
so  he  must  have  committed  a  great  mistake,  and  that 


CHAP.  IX]  A  GAME  OF  WHIST  99 

the  imposing  of  pledges  would  turn  a  Member  of 
Parliament  into  a  mere  delegate.  The  little  painter 
and  engraver  was  taken  aback,  but  he  had  too  much 
vanity  and  vivacity  to  hold  his  tongue.  "  But, 
Mr.  Godwin,"  said  he,  "  you  will  admit  that  your 
'  Political  Justice  '  was  all  for  knocking  down  the 
aristocracy  and  for  throwing  the  whole  power  of  the 
nation  into  the  hands  of  the  people  ?" 

"  If  ever  I  said  so,"  said  Godwin,  "  I  must  have 
been  under  a  mistake."  "  Mr.  Godwin,"  rejoined 
the  artist,  now  getting  rather  vexed,  "  I  am  afraid 
that  you  do  not  stick  to  your  principles  !"  The  old 
reformed  revolutionist,  who  was  taking  up  his  cards 
and  arranging  his  suit,  said  mildly  and  even  meekly : 
"  Principles  and  opinions  !  opinions  and  principles  ! 
perplexing  things  !  When  I  really  know  what  or 
which  I  am  to  stick  to,  I  will  think  about  making 
up  my  mind.  It  is  very  easy  to  stick  when,  hke  a 
mussel,  one  sticks  to  the  side  of  a  rock,  or  a  copper- 
bottomed  ship;  when  one  doesn't  think." 

"  But,"  said  Martin,  "  we  have  had  march  of 
intellect,  progress  of  education,  intellectual  develop- 
ment, throwing  off  of  prejudices ;  and  now  the  Nation, 
the  People,  thinks!"  Old  Godwin,  beginning  to 
lead  in  trumps,  and  transparently  annoyed  at  the 
interruption,  yet  still  as  calm  and  cool  as  a  cucumber, 
said :  "  I  don't  think  that  a  whole  People  can  think." 
"  Then,"  said  Martin,  "  you  throw  up  the  democratic 
principle?"  "  Perhaps  I  do,"  said  Godwin,  making 
a  trick. 

I  liked  little  Martin,  not  for  his  vapid  politics,  nor 
even  very  much  for  his  phantasmagoric  pictures; 
but  I  liked  him  very  much  for  his  kindliness  of  heart 
and  other  good  qualities  that  were  in  him.  I  also 
liked  old  Godwin,  and  all  the  more  for  his  tranquil 
mood,  and  for  the  ease  and  honesty  with  which  he 
made  confession  of  past  errors.  For  two  or  three 
London  seasons  I  met  him  rather  frequently,  and 
always  found  him  the  same  quiet,  composed,  retiring 


loo  WILLIAM  GODWIN  [chap,  ix 

man,  averse  to  political  or  to  any  other  sort  of  argu- 
mentation. There  was  no  warmth  or  expansiveness 
about  him,  but  I  rather  fancied  that  he  Hked  me 
because  I  had  known  poor  Shelley  and  his  wife,  who 
was  his  only  daughter  by  Mary  Wollstonecraft. 

Lord  Dudley  and  Ward,  who  had  been,  more  than 
once,  a  Quarterly  Reviewer,  was  in  the  habit  of  calhng 
rather  frequently  at  Albemarle  Street,  for  a  gossip 
in  King  John's  drawing-room.  One  afternoon  His 
Majesty  told  him  that  old  Wilham  Godwin  was  in 
great  difficulties  and  absolute  distress.  "  I  am 
sorry  for  that,"  said  Lord  Ward,  "  very  sorry.  He 
wrote  some  wild,  perilous  pohtical  trash  in  his  young 
days ;  but  the  author  of  '  Caleb  Wilhams  '  is  a  man 
of  genius,  and  ought  not  to  know  want.  It  is  a 
shame  !  and  in  his  old  age  too  !"  He  went  into  an 
inner  room,  as  if  to  look  for  something,  and  on  his 
return  put  a  cheque  for  £ioo,  quite  slily,  into  John's 
hand,  w^hispering  him  to  get  the  cheque  cashed, 
to  send  the  money  to  Godwin,  and  to  say  nothing 
about  it  to  anyone.  And  if  King  John  had  not 
babbled  over  his  cups,  and  if  his  head  clerk  and 
"  Fidus  Achates,"  Mr.  Dundas,  had  not  tattled, 
Godwin  would  never  have  known  whence  the  money 
came,  nor  would  the  world  have  known  anything 
about  it. 

Such  acts  of  generosity,  and  acts  still  more  muni- 
ficent, were  by  no  means  uncommon  with  his  lordship. 
Miss  M.  R.,  cousin  and  confidante  to  Lady  Lyndhurst, 
told  me  of  a  good  many  which  had  come  to  her 
knowledge,  either  accidentally  or  through  Lady  L.'s 
revelations;  and  no  doubt  there  were  many  that 
neither  Lady  L.  nor  her  cousin  had  ever  heard  of. 

This  admiration  for  "  Caleb  Wilhams  "  was  not 
pecuhar  to  Lord  Dudley  and  Ward.  Mr.  Canning  told 
his  cousin  Stratford  (not  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe) 
that  the  first  time  he  took  up  that  book  he  was 
thrilled  and  riveted  by  it;  and  that,  though  much 
occupied  at  the  time,  he  could  scarcely  lay  the  book 


CHAP.  IX]  CALEB  WILLIAMS  i6\: 

down,  or  leave  off  reading,  till  he  had  finished  it. 
I  have  heard  Lord  Brougham,  and  many  other  first- 
rate  men,  make  the  same  confession;  but  of  this  I 
knew  nothing  when,  quite  in  my  young  days,  "  Caleb 
Williams  "  fell  in  my  way.  This  was  one  summer 
morning,  in  1815,  at  Gibraltar,  in  the  Officers' Garrison 
Library,  which  I  did  not  leave  until  I  had  devoured 
the  whole  of  the  tale. 

Nearly  two  years  after  this,  I  read  it  again  at 
Naples,  and  was  almost  equally  struck  with  it;  yet, 
when  I  came  to  reperuse  it  last  year  (1855),  I  must 
confess  that  for  me  nearly  all  the  charm  was  gone, 
that  it  hung  heavily  on  hand,  and  that  I  could  not 
imagine  how  it  had  ever  so  thrilled  and  excited  me. 
I  could  no  longer  detect  that  life  and  very  essence 
of  reality  for  which  it  has  been  so  long  and  universally 
applauded.  How  is  this  ?  It  cannot  be  that  my 
personal  acquaintance  with  the  author  had  an^'thing 
to  do  with  the  matter;  for,  on  the  whole,  1  liked  old 
Godwin,  and  much  admired  his  old  age  gentleness. 
I  can  only  say  that  so  it  is.  Other  works  of  fiction 
that  amused  me  in  181 5  divert  and  please  me  still, 
and  among  these  are  included  Mrs.  Radcliffe's 
Romances,  which,  nowadays,  nobody  seems  to  care 
about — except  Mountstuart  Elphinstone,  who  can  still 
read  them  with  pleasure.  Quite  lately,  I  took  up 
Godwin's  "  Essay  on  Sepulchres,"  and  was  quite  as 
much  delighted  with  it  as  ever  I  had  been.  It  is  a 
very  choice  bit  of  English  writing,  and  has  a  re- 
verential and  even  a  devotional  feeling  about  it, 
which  leads  me  to  hope  and  almost  believe,  without 
a  knowledge  of  the  fact,  that  Godwin  after  all  his 
vacillations  and  changes  in  matters  of  faith  or  un- 
belief, must  at  last  have  died  a  Christian. 


CHAPTER    X 

LEIGH  HUNT 

This  peculiar  moralist  had  certainly  very  loose 
notions  about  money,  debt,  and  all  manner  of 
pecuniary  obligations. 

A  good  many  years  ago,  while  that  other  very 
peculiar  moralist,  philosopher,  and  poet,  Walter 
Savage  Landor,  was  living  on  the  Fiesole  hill  behind 
Florence,  Knight  said:  "I  understand  that  Landor 
has  got  over  his  difficulties,  and  is  coming  to  live  in 
his  own  country."  ''  No,"  said  C,  "  that  can  hardly 
be,  for,  poor  fellow  !  he  still  owes  nearly  £20,000." 
"  Poor  fellow!"  said  Hunt;  "  why  call  him  a  poor 
fellow  ?  I  should  rather  call  him  a  very  lucky 
fellow,  to  have  been  able  to  get  so  much  credit  !" 

Hunt  rarely  engaged  to  do  any  kind  of  work  without 
asking  for  advances,  and  when  he  got  the  money, 
it  was  not  always  easy  to  get  the  work  out  of  him. 
Old  A.  used  to  quote  the  proverb  about  "  working 
the  dead  horse,"  and  to  say  that,  next  to  his  friend 
Hazlitt,  Hunt  was  in  this  sense  the  worst  of  dead 
horses. 

Also,  like  Hazlitt,  Hunt  never  seemed  to  consider 
that  he  had  been  paid  for  an  article  until  he  had  sold 
it  to  three  or  four  of  the  Trade.  He  greatl}^  injured 
himself  by  these  manoeuvres,  which  he  would  explain 
and  justify  with  a  logic  all  his  own,  and  with  the 
greatest  composure  and  most  perfect  bonhomie. 
Even  when  he  applied  steadily  to  it,  which  was 
seldom  the  case,  he  w^as  very  slow  at  his  work.  I 
have  known  him  occupy  a  whole  week  in  writing  six 

102 


CHAP,  x]         AT  OLD  BROMPTON  103 

or  seven  pages  of  prose.  K.  on  one  occasion  engaged 
to  give  him  a  weekly  stipend  of  £6  for  one  or  two 
prose  articles.  From  the  time  of  the  bargain  he 
scarcely  furnished  anything  except  extracts  from  new 
books,  which  his  children  copied  for  him.  Mrs.  Hunt 
was  most  punctual  in  calling  for  the  money ;  but  the 
articles — the  articles  were  hardly  ever  forthcoming. 
Yet  K.  stood  this  for  nearly  a  whole  year.  He  had 
previously  been  a  considerable  sufferer  by  the 
Cockney  bard.  He  had  let  him  a  cottage  at  Old 
Brompton,  in  which  he  had  been  living  himself,  and 
which  was  nicely  furnished. 

Hunt  and  his  family  stayed  there,  without  ever 
paying  a  sixpence  of  rent,  for  nearly  two  years,  when 
K.  got  rid  of  them  by  sending  them  a  receipt  in  full 
of  all  demands,  and  then  he  had  the  additional  satis- 
faction of  finding  that  they  had  ruined  nearly  all 
the  furniture.  Yet  I  have  heard  the  poet,  in  moments 
of  anger,  call  the  publisher  an  unfeeling,  stingy 
fellow. 

But  Hunt  had  his  good  qualities,  and  a  great  many 
of  them.  We  all  believed  he  would  have  had  many 
more  but  for  his  mismanaging,  unthrifty  wife,  the 
most  barefaced,  persevering,  pertinacious  of  mendi- 
cants. She  held  as  an  undeviating  principle  that 
everybody  was  bound  to  do  homage  to  her  husband's 
genius,  and  to  administer  to  his  wants  and  to  those 
of  herself  and  children,  and  that  all  literary  men, 
whether  rich  or  poor,  were  in  especial  manner  under 
these  obligations.  She  would  never  take  a  refusal; 
after  asking  for  five  pounds,  she  would  go  away  with 
five  shillings  or  a  smaller  sum.  I  believe  it  was  my 
friend  W.  who  first  gave  her  the  name  of  "  Old 
Mother  D ble."  Whenever  she  made  a  good  col- 
lection she  was  sure  to  be  seen  the  next  day,  with 
her  daughters  and  a  son  or  two,  driving  about  London 
in  what  the  French  call  a  voitiire  de  remise,  and  what 
we  used  to  designate  a  "  glass  coach." 

I  believe  that  Hunt,  who  remained  at  home  tag- 


I04  LEIGH  HUNT  [chap.x 

ging  rhymes  or  conning  old  books,  or  reading  the  last 
new  novel,  was  not  aware  of  anything  like  the  extent 
to  which  his  sposa  carried  her  begging  and  borrowing ; 
but  he  must  have  known  that  he,  she,  and  family, 
were  not  fed  by  ravens  like  the  prophet  of  old. 

Thomas  Carlyle,  who  had  not  more  money  than  he 
knew  what  to  do  with,  was  frequently  visited  by  Mrs. 
H.  She  began  by  borrowing  five  pounds,  promising 
most  faithfully  to  return  the  money  by  a  given  time. 
To  Carlyle 's  astonishment,  she  did  return  it;  but  it 
was  only  to  borrow  it  again  in  a  week  or  two.  Again 
she  surprised  the  philosopher  by  repayment;  but 
again,  in  the  course  of  a  few  days,  she  reborrowed  it. 
This  went  on  for  a  long  time.  When  the  five  sover- 
eigns were  at  home,  Mrs.  Carlyle  always  put  them  in 
a  corner  of  her  escritoire  ;  and  the  coin,  done  up  in 
paper,  was  called  ''  Hunt  money." 

At  last  the  philosopher  grew  tired  of  this  constant 
ebb  and  flow  of  capital,  and  the  last  time  that  Mrs. 
H.  sent  one  of  her  children,  he  demurred.  Mrs.  C. 
thought  that  he  might  as  well  lend  again;  and  the 
philosopher  was  divided  between  the  opinion  of 
whether  he  should  or  should  not.  To  get  out  of  his 
indecision  and  settle  the  matter,  he  took  a  shilling 
out  of  his  pocket  and  said:  "Well,  if  this  comes 
down  '  heads,'  Mrs.  H.  shall  have  the  sovereigns." 
He  tossed;  it  came  down  ''  tails,"  and  so  old  Mother 
D.,  like  old  Mother  Hubbard's  dog,  had  none. 

When  poor  Hunt  happened  to  have  money,  he 
was  most  generous  with  it ;  but  the  occurrence,  or 
accident,  was  rare.  I  believe  that  at  any  time  he 
would  have  divided  his  last  shilling  with  a  friend. 

He  was  nothing  of  a  sensualist;  he  could  eat  the 
plainest  food,  and  cared  little  for  wine,  if  he  had  to 
pay  for  it.  I  believe  that  at  one  time  he  had  been 
rather  particular  about  his  dress,  but  when  I  began 
to  know  him  intimately,  in  1829-30,  he  had  no  ex- 
pensive tastes  or  habits.  By  this  time  he  had  pretty 
well  got  rid  of  all  the  affectations  and  all  the  cox- 


CHAP,  x]  HOOD  AS  PUNSTER  105 

combry  of  which  I  had  so  often  heard  him  accused ; 
he  was  natural,  easy,  gentle,  neither  too  emphatic 
nor  too  poetical,  abounding  in  anecdotes  and  drollery, 
and  on  the  whole  I  think  he  was  about  the  best  of 
our  English  conversationalists.  We  differed  in  poli- 
tics, we  differed  about  religion,  we  differed  in  almost 
everything;  yet,  in  a  quarter  of  a  century,  I  have 
never  received  a  harsh  retort  or  an  angry  word  from 
Leigh  Hunt. 


THOMAS  HOOD,  POET,  PUNSTER,  AND  NOVELIST 

Hood  was  a  small,  rather  saturnine-looking  man, 
with  very  weak  and  watery  eyes. 

Though  so  very  witty  upon  paper,  he  was  by  no 
means  happy  in  spoken,  impromptu  puns  or  other 
jokes.  His  puns  required  time,  long  thought,  and 
elaboration.  Those  which  he  elaborated  were  in- 
numerable, and  about  the  best  that  were  ever  made. 
In  conversation,  I  have  heard  him  make  very  bad 
ones.  One  evening,  at  Horace  Smith's — himself 
a  pitiless  punster — Colonel  Cradock,  now  Lord 
Howden,  was  quietly  relating  how  he  had  been  at- 
tacked and  wounded  by  an  Arab  while  travelling 
to  the  ruins  of  Baalbec  in  the  desert.  "  Colonel," 
said  Tommy,  "  if  you  were  a  Scotsman,  you  might 
say  that  you  were  spiering  your  way."  "  No,"  said 
Cradock,  "  I  was  not  spearing,  I  was  speared." 

Most  people  know  that  the  Scottish  verb,  "  to 
spier,"  means  to  ask,  or  to  inquire.  If  a  Scotsman 
does  not  know  his  way,  he  "  spiers." 

Cradock,  though  not  much  given  to  punning, 
could  keep  his  own  with  most  men;  and,  in  conversa- 
tion, was  far  too  much  for  either  Hood  or  Smith. 
I  confess  that  I  have  always  felt  two  puns  in  an 
evening — both  taken  after  dinner — to  be  a  dose. 
Horace  had  no  discretion,  and  would  give  3^ou  twenty, 
one  after  the  other,  rat-tat-tat,  like  the  shots  of  a 


io6  THOMAS  HOOD  [chap,  x 

revolver.  I  sincerely  grieved  at  the  misfortunes, 
the  poverty,  the  distressing  sickness,  in  which  the 
last  years  of  poor  Tommy  were  spent.  For  a  con- 
siderable time  he  made  a  deal  of  money  by  his 
writings.  His  ''  Comic  Annual,"  which  was  first 
suggested  to  him  by  my  late  friend  Edward  Bull  the 
bookseller,  must  have  been  a  little  fortune  to  him; 
but,  like  the  rest  of  us,  he  had  no  head  for  business, 
no  system,  no  management,  and  he  spent  the  money 
as  fast  as  he  got  it.  For  some  time,  he  occupied  a 
pleasant  little  cottage  in  the  right  pleasant  village 
of  Winchmore  Hill,  between  Southgate  and  Enfield. 
I  was  once  very  near  taking  that  cottage  for  myself 
and  family.  It  was  certainly  house  enough  for  him; 
but  Tommy  did  not  think  so,  and  all  of  a  sudden  he 
was  invaded  by  the  insane  fancy  that  he  could  save 
expenses  and  even  make  money  by  farming — he 
who  scarcely  knew  grass-seed  from  gunpowder.  So, 
after  a  lucky  hit  with  some  book  or  other,  he  went 
away  and  took  a  large  house  on  the  edge  of  Epping 
Forest,  quite  a  mansion  or  manor-house,  with 
extensive  gardens  and  about  eighty  acres  of  land 
attached.  As  the  house  was  so  roomy,  he  could 
give  his  friends  beds,  and  as  a  general  rule  those 
who  went  to  dine  stayed  all  night,  and  a  part  of 
the  next  day. 

The  house  was  seldom  devoid  of  guests,  the  distance 
was  so  convenient,  and  Tommy's  cockney  friends 
liked  to  breathe  country  air,  and  took  up  quite  a 
romantic  passion  for  the  scenery  of  the  Forest. 
His  household  expenses  were  treble  what  they  had 
been  in  the  snug,  pretty  little  cottage  at  Winchmore 
Hill;  and  then  the  farm  ran  away  with  a  world  of 
money.  It  may  be  imagined  how  a  thorough 
cockney,  one  born  and  bred  in  the  Poultry,  Cheap- 
side,  a  poet  and  a  punster,  would  farm  !  What  with 
his  hospitalities,  and  what  with  his  agricultural 
expenditure,  he  became  seriously  embarrassed,  and 
not  having  nerve  to  face  his  creditors,  he  quitted  the 


CHAP,  x]  HOOD  AS  FARMER  107 

Forest,  and  flitted  over  to  the  Rhine.  I  do  not 
remember  how  lone;  he  remained  in  Germany,  but 
I  think  it  was  not  quite  a  year.  He  could  get  nothing 
there,  and  could  not,  at  that  distance,  do  much  with 
the  London  publishers. 

Some  arrangements  were  made  with  his  creditors, 
by  means  of  his  brother-in-law,  Reynolds,  himself 
a  poet  and  a  debtor,  and  by  some  other  friends,  and 
Tommy  returned  to  London  with  his  wife  and 
children.  It  was  kind,  it  was  noble,  in  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  to  grant  Hood  the  pension  the  moment  he  knew 
his  sad  condition. 


HORACE  SMITH 

Poor  Kenney,  who  wrote  so  many  merry  comedies 
and  farces,  and  made  so  many  thousands  of  play- 
goers laugh  till  their  sides  ached,  was  a  sickly,  sallow- 
looking  man,  much  given  to  despondency  and  hypo- 
chondriasis. No  wonder  !  for  he  was  in  poverty, 
and  getting  on  in  years.  At  a  Brighton  dinner-party 
given  by  Horace  Smith,  at  which  were  present 
Charles  Mathews,  senior,  three  or  four  literary  men, 
and  three  or  four  ladies,  who  had  no  pretension  to 
the  bas  bleu,  Kenney  suddenly  gave  way  to  a  violent 
fit  of  coughing,  started  up  from  table,  walked  across 
the  room,  coughing  all  the  time,  and  getting  almost 
black  in  the  face.  At  last,  with  a  violent  effort,  he 
ejected  from  his  throat  a  big  bit  of  cork,  which  he 
had  not  noticed  in  his  glass,  and  which  he  had  swal- 
lowed with  his  last  gulp  of  wine.  "  Ah  I"  said 
Horace,  "  that  was  not  the  road  for  Cork,  but  it  was 
the  way  to  Kill  Kenney  I"  I  really  believe  that  if 
the  dramatist  had  been  choked  outright,  Smith 
would  have  had  his  pun.  He  was  not  a  cynical  or 
unfeeling  man;  very  far  from  that,  but  the  oppor- 
tunity of  punning  was  a  temptation  he  could  never 
resist. 


io8 


HORACE  SMITH 


[chap.  X 


The  worst  of  him  was  that  he  punned  with  a 
serious  face.  Though  rather  a  good-looking  man, 
there  was  no  play  or  mobility  on  his  features ;  his 
face  and  eyes  did  not  "  pun  "  with  him.  Rose  used 
to  say  that  he  would  just  as  soon  hear  his  puns  from 
an  automaton,  or  through  the  open  cherry  lips  of  a 
perruquier's  wax  bust,  as  from  Horace. 

For  some  considerable  time  Kemp  Town,  Brighton, 
promised  to  be  an  unprofitable  speculation  to  its 
founder  and  proprietor.  Though  the  situation  was 
good  and  the  houses  of  a  superior  order,  they  did  not 
let.  I  can  remember  when  there  were  only  one  or 
two  occupied  by  families.  But  the  gas  was  laid  on, 
and  the  whole  place  brilliantly  lighted  at  night. 
Somebody  said  to  Smith  that  he  was  afraid  Kemp 
Town  was  not  thriving.  "  How  can  you  expect  it 
to  thrive,  when  it's  all  lights,  and  no  liver  ?"  punned 
Horace. 


CHAPTER  XI 
SIR  JAMES  MACKINTOSH 

A  WRITER  in  the  Quarterly  Review  has  called  Sir 
James  the  "  most  accomphshed  and  the  most  ill- 
used  man  of  the  Whig  party."  He  was  all  that. 
Not  one  of  them  could  come  near  him  in  accomplish- 
ment, or  in  political  knowledge,  or  in  political  wisdom. 
The  Recordership  of  Bombay  was  but  poor  promotion  ; 
and  afterwards,  though  with  all  the  patronage  of 
the  State  in  their  hands  for  years,  he  never  obtained 
from  the  Whigs  any  higher,  or  indeed  any  other, 
employment.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  he  could 
have  been  worse  used.  They  might  easily  have  made 
some  proper  provision  for  him  on  their  advent  to 
power  in  1830,  and  they  could  have  done  so  almost 
any  day  between  this  period  and  that  of  his  decease. 
Was  it  that  Mackintosh  was  but  half  a  Whig,  or, 
if  a  whole  Whig,  then  the  most  measured,  most 
moderate  of  them  all  ?  Many  ^xars  before  the 
Reform  Bill  agitation.  Mackintosh  had  come  to 
the  conviction,  and  had  openly  proclaimed  it, 
that  the  parliamentary  franchise  might  be  too 
much  extended — that  a  mob  could  never  govern  a 
mob. 

I  first  met  Sir  James  at  Mr.  Henry  Brougham's, 
in  the  spring,  or  rather  the  early  summer,  of  1829. 
I  saw  him  rather  frequently  between  that  time  and 
the  beginning  of  1833,  when  I  went  down  to  Scotland, 
and  I  would  now  gratefully  bear  testimony  to  his 
engaging  simplicity  of  manners,  his  goodness  of 
heart,  his  exceeding  great  kindness  to  young  men  of 

lOQ  Q 


no  SIR  JAMES  MACKINTOSH       [chap,  xi 

letters,  for  whom  he  had  always  a  word  of  encourage- 
ment, and  very  often  a  word  of  excellent  advice. 
He  gave  me  some  valuable  hints  on  *'  La  maniere 
d'ecrire  I'histoire,"  as  the  Abbe  Mabl}^  called  it. 
I  heartily  wish  that  my  time  and  abilities  could 
have  enabled  me  to  profit  more  by  his  suggestions, 
but  my  historical  labours  have  been  a  sort  of  travail 
force;  I  have  nearly  always  had  to  w^rite  against 
time,  to  feed  the  Press  month  by  month,  or  even  week 
by  week. 

In  all  his  latter  years  Sir  James  was  in  straitened 
circumstances,  and  frequently  in  pecuniary  diffi- 
culties; beset  by  creditors  in  a  way  that  to  any 
man  of  feeling,  or  to  any  man  who  had  a  respect 
for  virtue  and  genius,  it  was  quite  painful  to  witness 
or  to  hear  of.  He  might  have  obtained  a  great  deal 
more  money  from  the  booksellers;  but  though  he 
was  so  fluent  and  quick  in  talk,  I  believe  he  was 
rather  slow  with  the  pen ;  and  then  his  attention  was 
distracted  and  so  much  of  his  time  occupied  by 
politics,  by  society,  of  which  he  was  alwa3's  fond, 
by  the  London  University,  and  by  other  concerns 
and  concernments,  that  he  could  have  had  but  a 
limited  leisure  for  literature. 

He  was  always  exceedingly  gentle,  patient,  and 
polite  with  his  duns;  and  had,  though  in  a  rather 
different  manner,  some  successes  in  this  wa}^  that 
Sheridan  himself  might  have  envied ;  but  he  did  not 
like  to  see  them  come  to  his  private  house  in  Portland 
Place,  and  he  used  to  make  appointments  with  them 
at  a  Life  Insurance  Office,  of  which  he  was  an 
actuar}^,  and  from  which  he  received  an  inconsider- 
able annual  stipend.  It  was  not  always  when  they 
called  that  he  had  the  mone}^  to  satisfy  them; 
and  I  was  told  that  in  these  cases  he  would  slip  out 
at  a  back  door,  as  they  were  about  to  charge  in  at 
the  front.  I  will  not  answer  for  this,  but  I  well 
remember  a  mot  of  Lord  Alvanley's:  "  Every  gentle- 
man in  money  difficulties  ought  to  hve  in  St.  James's 


CHAP,  xi]     MRS.  JAMESON  AND  CRAIK  iii 

Place,  on  the  left-hand  side  as  you  go  up ;  not  because 
two  rich  bankers,  and  one  of  them  a  banker-poet, 
live  there,  but  because  the  houses  have  a  back  door, 
and  a  free  issue  into  the  Park."  The  two  bankers 
were  old  Sam  Rogers,  and  Lubbock,  who  lived  within 
a  door  or  two  of  each  other. 


MRS.  JAIMESON 

I  liked  Mrs.  Jameson,  and  have  always  considered 
her  one  of  the  best  of  our  living  authoresses.  She 
generally  writes  upon  subjects  she  well  understands, 
and  her  various  books  about  art  and  artists  are  likely 
to  last.  But  Mrs.  Jameson,  though  very  fond  of 
admiration,  had  never  much  personal  beaut3^  At 
a  soiree,  she  went  and  sat  near  my  friend  George 
Lillie  Craik,  who  was  turning  over  a  portfolio  of 
drawings  and  engravings.  Except  in  one  particular, 
I  should  not  rank  Craik  among  my  absent-minded 
friends.  He  was  distrait  only  in  omnibuses,  and  in 
finding  his  way.  He  could  seldom  get  from  his 
cottage  at  Old  Brompton  to  ours  at  Friern  Barnet 
without  committing  some  blunder  or  other.  Gener- 
ally, at  our  dinner  hour,  he  would  find  himself  at 
Tottenham,  or  Edmonton,  or  Enfield,  or  Ponders 
End,  or  some  other  place  five  or  six  miles  off,  and  with 
no  cross-country  conveyance.  He  had  to  change 
buses  at  the  Angel  at  Islington;  he  usually  got 
into  the  wrong  one,  fell  a-thinking  or  talking, 
and  took  no  notice  of  the  road  he  was  travelling. 
But  in  all  other  matters,  Craik,  for  a  Lowland  Scots- 
man, was  a  smart,  brisk,  ready-witted  fellow.  He 
must  have  seen  Mrs.  Jameson  scores  of  times,  and 
must  have  known  her  freckled  complexion,  and  the 
ardent  colour  of  her  hair.  They  came  upon  a  portrait 
of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots.  Mrs.  Jameson  waxed 
eloquent  on  the  beauty  of  the  poor  Queen.  "  I 
beUeve,"  said  Craik,  in  his  quiet  way,  "  it  is  now? 


112  MRS.  JAMESON  [chap.xi 

said  we  have  no  authentic  portrait  of  Mary.  I 
suppose  she  must  have  been  beautiful,  as  it  is  asserted 
by  so  many  of  her  contemporaries;  and  yet,  I  hardly 
know;  I  can't  conceive  a  beautiful  woman  with  red 
hair;  and  we  are  told  that  Mary  was  red-haired." 
He  looked  up  from  the  picture,  and  saw  the  red 
locks  of  Mrs.  Jameson,  who  presently  beat  a  retreat. 
"  I  could  have  bitten  off  my  tongue,"  said  he,  ''  but 
I  had  said  my  say,  and  could  not  unsay  it." 

When  this  authoress  wrote  her  dismal  book  about 
Italy,  entitled,  ''  Diary  of  an  Ennuyee,"  she  was  a 
spinster,  living  as  governess  with  an  English  family  at 
Rome,  and  she  was  quite  desperately  in  love  with  Beau 
Cradock,  Lord  Howden;  who,  at  that  time,  was  as 
handsome  as  the  Antinous,  and  as  graceful  as  the 
Belvedere  Apollo.  Poor  Cradock,  who  was  never 
much  of  a  coxcomb,  admired  her  for  her  vivacity, 
talent,  and  eloquence;  but  he  could  hardly  go  farther, 
and  so  the  demoiselle  was  sadder  than  Corinne. 

Jameson,  who  became  her  husband  years  after  this 
hopeless  amour,  had  been  a  schoolfellow  with  poor 
dear  Hartley  Coleridge,  who  always  spoke  of  him  as 
a  good  fellow,  and  as  a  man  of  real  original  genius, 
who  might  have  done  a  good  deal  in  literature  if  he 
had  tried.  The  common  rule,  that  a  very  clever 
husband  and  a  very  clever  wife  seldom  agree  or  live 
happily  together,  found  no  exception  in  this  case. 
He  obtained  some  Government  appointment  out  in 
Canada;  she  remained  at  home,  to  write  books,  and 
to  take  care  of  her  old  father,  a  miniature  painter 
by  profession,  whose  sight  had  failed  him.  And 
nobly  did  she  discharge  her  filial  duty,  and  hard  did 
she  work  that  her  father  might  know  no  want  and 
miss  no  comfort.  For  this,  even  if  her  books  should 
be  forgotten,  let  her  name  be  honoured,  and  let  her 
be  enshrined  with  Southey  and  other  heroes  in 
domestic  life. 

I  think  it  was  about  the  year  1840  that  I  w^as  told 
she  had  gone  out  to  Canada,  to  be  reconciled  to  her 


CHAP,  xi]        THE  MISSES  PORTER  113 

long-absent  husband.  To  Canada  she  certainly  went, 
for  she  came  home  and  wrote  a  book  about  it,  which 
might  have  been  a  better  book  if  she  had  stayed  a 
little  longer. 


MISS  JANE  AND  MISS  ANNA  MARIA  PORTER 

I  liked  these  two  sisters  exceedingly,  although  they 
were  authoresses.  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  their 
brother,  Sir  Robert  Ker  Porter,  the  traveller,  artist, 
diplomatist,  and  author,  in  1829,  at  a  house  in  Bolton 
Row,  and  was  much  pleased  with  him  and  some  lively 
accounts  he  gave  of  society  in  Russia.  The  sisters 
I  did  not  meet  until  1830  or  1831,  when  they  were 
staying  with  my  friend  William  Mackinnon,  M.P., 
at  Hyde  Park  Place,  just  opposite  Cumberland  Gate. 
They  were  quiet,  perfectly  unaffected,  rather  retiring, 
very  ladylike  elderly  ladies,  neat  and  plain  in  their 
attire,  and  taking  no  pains  to  conceal  the  snow 
whi(  h  Time  was  throwing  on  their  hair.  Jane,  the 
elder  sister,  had  still  a  good  figure,  was  tall,  and 
must  have  been  rather  handsome;  Anna  Maria  was 
shorter  and  fairer.  I  should  think  she  could  never 
have  had  any  pretension  to  personal  beauty,  but  the 
expression  of  her  countenance  was  gentleness  and 
sweetness  itself. 

There  was  nothing  blue,  nothing  of  the  pr^cieuse, 
or  professional  authoress,  about  either  of  them,  and 
I  have  seen  them  sensitively  shrink  at  any  allusion 
to  their  works,  and  ahnost  run  out  of  the  room  from 
an  explosion  of  comphment  and  praise.  One  night, 
at  rather  a  numerous  party  at  my  brother  High- 
lander's, I  saw  their  sensitiveness  put  to  a  severe 
test  by  old  vSotheby  the  poet  and  translator,  commonly 
called  "  Old  Botherby." 

Mackinnon  had  introduced  him  to  the  sisters. 
Addressing  Anna  Maria,  who  looked  the  elder  of  the 
two,    he   said    in    his    peculiarly    unctuous    manner : 


114  JANE  AND  ANNA  PORTER      [chap,  xi 

"  Miss  Porter,  I  think  I  have  the  honour  of  making 
my  bow  to  the  authoress  of  '  The  Scottish  Chiefs.'  " 
"  No,  sir,"  said  Anna  Maria,  with  a  slight  blush, 
"  that  work  was  written  by  my  sister  Jane."  "  Then," 
said  old  Botherby,  turning  to  Jane,  and  grasping  her 
fingers,  "  I  have  the  honour  of  shaking  hands  with 
the  writer  of  the  best  and  grandest  historical 
romance  that  ever  was  or  that  ever  will  be 
written  !" 

Miss  Jane  reddened,  and  could  say  nothing;  but 
when  Sotheby  went  off  at  a  tangent  to  explode  to 
some  other  literary  lion  or  lioness,  she  whispered, 
"  How  absurd  !  How  can  that  old  gentleman  expect 
one  to  be  flattered  by  such  outrageous  compliments, 
or  expect  that  one  can  bear  such  things  said  to  one's 
face?" 

Old  Botherby  was  soon  back  to  our  corner  of  the 
drawing-room.  I  fancy  he  had  been  collecting  in- 
formation, for  he  told  Anna  Maria  that  she  had 
written  "  The  Hungarian  Brothers,"  and  that  that 
romance  was,  in  its  way,  as  admirable,  as  unrivalled, 
as  perfect,  as  "  The  Scottish  Chiefs."  The  poor  little 
authoress  winced,  and  when  old  Sotheby  was  again 
gone,  she  said  she  had  rather  never  go  into 
society  at  all  than  be  frequently  exposed  to  such 
assaults. 

The  last  years  of  Miss  Porter  were  saddened  by 
domestic  losses.  Shortly  before  I  met  her  she  had 
lost  her  aged  mother,  and  within  a  twelvemonth  of 
that  time  poor  Anna  Maria  died.  In  1842  Miss 
Porter  accompanied  her  brother  to  St.  Petersburg, 
and  he  was  suddenly  carried  off  by  apoplexy  as  they 
were  on  the  point  of  returning  to  England. 

Jane  survived  until  1850,  when  she  ended  her  days 
at  Bristol,  at  the  good  old  age  of  seventy-four.  I 
did  not  see  her  after  1833,  but  I  was  told,  and  can 
well  believe  it,  that  she  was  patient,  amiable,  and 
even  cheerful  to  the  last,  and  that  her  intellect  was 
in  no  way  affected  by  age.     It  was  a  remarkable  and 


CHAP,  xi]        THE  MISSES  PORTER  115 

exemplary  family.  The  father,  surL^eoii  in  the  6th 
or  Enniskillen  Drai^oons,  left  them  early  orphans; 
yet  by  their  industry,  persev^erance,  and  ability,  they 
strui^gled  on  to  comfortable  positions  in  life,  and  to 
something  more,  for  they  gained  the  friendship  of 
many  of  the  best  and  most  distinguished  of  their 
contemporaries . 

Though  not  so  old  as  was  Botherby,  when  he  paid 
his  compliments,  I  should  not  like  again  to  peruse 
the  whole  of  either  "  The  Scottish  Chiefs  "  or  "  The 
Hungarian  Brothers  ";  but  I  still  remember  the 
exquisite  delight  with  which  I  read  these  works  and 
other  romances  by  the  same  writers,  in  the  days  of 
my  boyhood,  and  I  still  think  them  pleasant  and 
even  improving  reading  for  young  people. 

In  this  generation,  young  men,  and  young  women 
too,  appear  to  be  getting  rather  too  fond  of  realities, 
and  much  too  indifferent  to  romance  and  sentiment. 
Too  much  romance  is  bad.  Granted;  but  so  is  too 
much  stern  reality  or  worldly  calculation.  The 
hearts  and  intellects  of  young  people  will  not  be  much 
elevated  or  improved  by  constant  delineations  of 
the  weaknesses,  absurdities,  follies,  and  crimes  of 
everyday  life.  We  ought,  at  least  now  and  then,  to 
give  them  more  generous,  more  glowing,  more  ideal 
pictures ;  and  set  up  the  heroes  and  heroines  of  our 
tales  on  the  pedestal  of  romance,  in  a  purer  atmo- 
sphere. The  danger  now  is,  not  that  our  sons  and 
daughters  will  become  too  romantic,  but  that  they 
will  become  too  worldly,  material,  and  selfish,  and 
too  apt  to  take  mere  Cockney  or  provincial  slang 
for  wit  and  humour.  With  only  a  few  modifications, 
and  one  or  two  additional  acquirements,  another  Jane 
and  another  Anna  Maria  I^orter  would  not  be  mis- 
placed in  England,  in  the  year  1856. 

Jane,  as  we  have  seen,  ended  her  days  at  Bristol; 
Anna  Maria  died  in  the  neighbourhood  of  that  city, 
at  Montpelier,  the  residence  of  Mrs.  Colonel  Booth. 
Mother  and  daughters  had  resided  at  Thames  Ditton; 


lie  JANE  AND  ANNA  PORTER      [chap,  xi 

but  afterwards,  and  for  a  much  longer  period,  they 
occupied  a  pretty  cottage  at  Esher,  close  to  Clare- 
mont.  On  their  account,  all  the  three  places  ought 
to  have  an  additional  interest  in  the  eye  of  the  visitor. 
*'  It  was  a  family  of  love,"  said  a  very  old  friend, 
"  and  for  many  years  that  cottage  at  Esher  was  an 
Elysium." 


CHAPTER  XII 

TOM  GENT 

Who,  in  London,  a  few  years  ago,  did  not  know  old 
Tom  Gent,  boozing  Tom  Gent,  roguish  Tom  Gent, 
witty  Tom  Gent,  Falstaff  Tom  Gent — a  man  who 
was  supposed  to  have  drunk  more  good  wine  and  to 
have  eaten  more  good  dinners — without  ever  paying 
for  them — than  any  individual  of  his  time ;  a  man 
who  lived  at  the  rate  of  ;{;2,ooo  a  year  without  having 
any  visible  means  of  existence,  and,  as  far  as  could 
be  discovered,  without  ever  having  a  sovereign  in 
his  pocket  ? 

For  considerably  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
did  this  extraordinary  genius  live  in  Town  and  upon 
the  Town;  though  how,  or  by  what  means  or  magic, 
it  was  seldom  easy  to  discover.  He  may  have  got 
a  good  deal  out  of  some  of  the  greener  members  of 
the  aristocracy;  for  without  knowing  anything  of 
antiquities,  curiosities,  painting,  or  music,  he  set  up 
for  a  virtuoso  and  connoisseur  in  all  the  fine  arts, 
and  enticed  young  noblemen  and  gentlemen  into 
purchases  of  knicknacks  and  pictures,  and  into 
patronizing  all  manner  of  fiddlers,  singers,  dancers, 
and  other  stage  actors  and  actresses. 

For  a  long  time  he  had  fashionable  apartments  in 
St.  James's,  and  held  Icvdes  which  were  attended  by 
lords,  baronets,  squires  of  substance,  citizens  of  good 
repute  on  Change,  artists.  Green  Room  people,  poets, 
reviewers,  and  journalists. 

The  inexperienced  applicants,  fresh  perhaps  from 
the  country,  and  eager  for  money  or  for  the  fame 

117 


1 1 8  TOM  GENT  [chap,  xii 

which  would  bring  them  money,  were  assiduous  in 
their  attendance  and  exemplary  in  their  submissive- 
ness  to  Tom  Gent,  who  had  the  happy  knack  of 
persuading  them  that  by  his  interest  and  influence 
he  could  make  the  fortune  of  every  mother's  son 
of  them. 

Some  of  these  poor  devils  he  rode  very  hard,  and 
perhaps  none  harder  than  Joey  Davis,  the  painter, 
known  by  the  name  of  "  Roman  Davis,"  but  who 
would  be  more  correctly  designated  as  "  witty  Davis." 
He  sold  one  of  Joey's  pictures,  made  him  spend 
nearly  all  the  proceeds  in  a  tavern  dinner  to  which 
the  guests  were  nearly  all  invited  by  Tom,  then  got 
from  him  a  picture  as  a  present,  and  then  made  him 
paint  his  portrait  in  kit-cat  size,  which,  being  hung 
in  Somerset  House  at  the  Exhibition  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  would  bring  Joey  hosts  of  sitters,  and  make 
him  the  fashionable  portrait-painter  of  the  day,  and 
a  rich  man  in  no  time.  Moreover,  Joey  was  always 
saying  good  things  and  making  excellent  jokes,  and  all 
these  Gent  purloined,  and  retailed  at  dinner-parties 
and  all  over  the  town  as  his  own.  Yet  more,  Tom 
dribbled  poetry,  and  could  make  nothing  of  it; 
whereas  Joey  was  quick  and  clever  at  verse-making, 
and  could  now  and  then  turn  off  a  more  than  re- 
spectable poem.  Joey's  verses  had  the  same  fate 
as  his  jests — they  were  all  stolen  by  Tom,  who  not 
only  showed  them,  in  manuscript,  as  his  own,  but 
now  and  then  put  them  into  print  with  his  own 
name  attached. 

In  the  days  of  the  Regency  this  modern  Falstaff 
was  very  ambitious  of  getting  the  entreey  though  only 
for  once,  at  Carlton  House.  He  thought  this  would 
give  him  an  6claty  which  he  might  turn  to  good 
account.  The  melancholy  death  of  poor  Princess 
Charlotte  seemed  to  Tom  to  present  an  admirable 
opportunity. 

He  waddled  to  Davis's  studio,  bullied  the  picture 
he  was  painting,  told  him  he  would  never  succeed  as 


CHAP,  xii]         PRINCESS  CHARLOTTE  119 

an  artist,  and  reproved  him  for  neglecting  to  cultivate 
the  Muses,  for  a  poet,  and  a  lirst-rate  poet,  he  might 
be.  Joey,  always  rather  prouder  of  his  verses  than 
of  his  pictures,  felt  his  poetical  vanity  tickled,  but 
said  that  he  had  no  subject,  that  he  knew  not  what 
to  take  up.  "  No  subject  I"  said  Tom.  "  Why,  what 
an  ass  you  are  I  Princess  Charlotte  died  yesterday 
— highest  rank  in  the  Universe — baby  dead  with  her 
— can't  be  Queen  of  England — dreadful  thing — dis- 
consolate husband — bereaved  Royal  father — not  a 
word  about  her  mother,  if  you  are  wise — venerable 
Queen  Charlotte,  the  grandmamma — all  the  uncles, 
aunts.  Royal  Dukes  and  Princesses — three  nations, 
England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  in  tears — and  John 
Bull  leaning  on  a  broken  marble  column  under  a 
weeping  willow — there,  Joey,  there's  a  subject  for 
you  !  Go  to  work  and  write  *  A  Monody  on  the  death 
of  Princess  Charlotte,'  and  we  shall  see  what  will 
come  of  it  !" 

Davis  did  write  the  monody,  and  a  very  fair  one 
it  was.  Gent  was  delighted.  "  Will  you  publish  it, 
on  your  own  account  ?"  said  he.  "  No,"  said  the 
painter,  "  I  have  no  money  to  risk  or  to  throw 
away."  "Will  you  send  it  to  a  magazine?"  "  I 
don't  know  any  editor."  "  Will  you  send  it  to  a 
newspaper  ?"  "  It  is  a  great  deal  too  long  for  that." 
"  Will  you  give  it  to  me  ?"  "  Willingly,  if  you  want 
it."  "  Then  the  monody  is  mine.  Now  then,  Joey, 
my  boy  !  listen  !  The  poem  is  mine,  I  am  the  author, 
don't  blab  !  I  will  make  it  find  the  way  for  me  to 
the  Regent;  and  when  I  get  my  foot  on  the  ladder, 
won't  I  pull  you  up  after  me,  my  boy  !" 

Davis  could  never  have  conceived  it  possible,  but 
through  Colonel  MacMahon,  or  some  other  person 
about  Court,  the  monody  was  laid  before  the  Regent, 
and,  shortly  afterwards,  Tom  Gent,  as  its  author, 
was  presented  to  His  Royal  Highness.* 

*  "  Lines  suggested  by  the  Death  of  the  Princess  Charlotte," 
were  pubhshed  in   1817,  with  a  clever  etched  portrait  of  Gent, 


I20  TOM  GENT  [chap.xii 

Tom  was  wonderfully  inflated  by  the  honour,  and 
spoke  of  it  for  a  long  time,  in  all  places.  But  it  did 
not  put  him  upon  the  ladder  of  promotion,  and  if  he 
derived  other  advantages  from  it,  he  did  not  share 
them  with  Joey  Davis. 

For  years  he  kept  reciting  the  "  monody  "  as  his 
own.  It  was  a  very  long  time  after  the  visit  to  Carlton 
House,  and  after  a  "  tiff  "  between  the  two,  that 
Joey  privately  reminded  him  that  he  had  written  the 
verses.  "  You  !"  said  Tom,  in  towering  indignation, 
*'  you  !  You  write  that  monody  !  It  never  was  in 
you,  you  never  could  do  anything  like  it  !  You 
never  could  come  within  a  mile  of  it  1  I  wrote  the 
monody,  and  all  the  world  knows  it  !  I  have  printed 
it,  I  have  circulated  it  !  You  will  be  taken  for  an 
arrant  impostor  if,  at  this  distance  of  time,  you 
pretend  that  it  is  yours  !" 

I  once  asked  Davis  what  he  said  to  this,  and  how 
he  felt  at  it.     "  To  tell  you  the  truth,"  said  Joey, 

I  was  so  brow-beaten  by  his  voice  and  manner,  his 
rapidity  of  utterance,  and  his  gesticulation,  that  I 
could  hardly  say  a  word;  indeed,  I  almost  began  to 
doubt  whether  I  had  ever  had  anything  to  do  with 
the  composition  of  the  verses.  You  must  remember 
that  Gent  was  then  even  more  of  a  Falstaff  than  he 
is  now,  and  that  I  was  younger  than  I  now  am. 

"  But  whether  old  or  young,  high  or  low,  Gent 
could,  on  occasion,  cajole,  bamboozle,  perplex,  and 
brow-beat  every  man  with  whom  he  came  in  contact. 

after  J.  P.  Davis.  Gent's  "Monody  to  the  Memory  of  the  Right 
Hon.  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan  "  was  pubhshed  in  1816.  The 
copies  in  the  London  Library  are  presentation  copies  to  Dawson 
Turner  of  Yarmouth,  with  autograph  letters  from  T.  Gent.  In 
the  letter  inserted  in  the  "Monody,"  Gent  writes:  "  It  was  sug- 
gested to  me  by  a  friend,  on  the  death  of  Mr.  Sheridan,  that  he 
thought  he  could  put  a  copy  of  such  a  tribute  to  his  memory  into 
a  channel  that  might  eventually  be  of  service  to  me.  I  confess  I 
have  not  much  reliance  on  any  patronage  arising  from  such  a 
circumstance,  yet,  as  the  experiment  only  costs  me  a  little  of  that 
leisure  of  which  I  have  unfortunately  too  much,  I  thought  it 
worth  making." 


CHAP.  XII]      A  YARMOUTH  BLOATER  121 

Ask  Matthew  Hill,  or  Charles  Kni^dit,  or  that  precise 
barrister,  John  Steer,  or  Tommy  Campbell,  or  Lytton 
Buhver,  or  even  shrewd  old  Longman,  or  any  other 
man  you  may  know  who  knew  him  a  few  years  ago  ! 

"  Barry  St.  Leger,  another  barrister,  a  man  of 
fashion,  one  who  was  thoroughly  a  man  of  the  world, 
and  who  was  quick,  witty,  and  voluble,  determined 
one  night  to  resist  Gent's  Falstaffisms,  impudence,  and 
paralyzing  influence;  but  he  was  beaten,  thoroughly 
discomfited,  and  obliged  to  succumb  to  the  burly 
magician,  like  the  rest  of  us.  No  !  there  was  no 
resisting  Tom  Gent  !  Perhaps  he  carried  the  more 
weight  with  me  as  we  were  fellow-townsmen.  I 
think  that  I  never  fairly  made  him  wince  but  once — 
and  that  was  when  I  called  him  a  '  Yarmouth 
bloater,'  and  bloated  he  was,  by  that  time.  But, 
mercy  on  me  1  With  what  a  torrent  of  vituperation, 
with  what  an  endless  string  of  nicknames,  did  he  not 
repay  me  !" 

Tom  went  one  day,  in  a  great  hurry,  to  Knight's 
shop  or  publishing  office  in  Pall  Mall  East.  He  was 
hard  up  for  money,  and  wanted  to  bring  out  a  volume 
of  poems.  He  had  so  many  friends,  he  knew  so  many 
people,  he  was  so  extensively  patronized,  that  he 
could  easily  dispose  of  an  edition;  and  even  750 
copies  at  los.  6d.  each,  paper,  printing,  binding,  and 
advertising  paid,  would  leave  a  pretty  little  margin 
of  protit.  "  But  where  are  the  poems  ?"  asked 
Knight.  "  Here  they  are,"  said  Tom,  producing 
Davis's  "  Monod}^  "  and  a  few  wretched  madrigals 
and  fugitive  pieces  which  might  have  been  written 
by  himself — for  though  so  witty  with  his  tongue, 
Gent  was  a  dunce  with  the  pen.  "  But,"  said  Knight, 
"  these  will  not  make  a  volume;  no,  nor  half  a 
volume  I  nor  the  fqurth  part  of  a  volume  1"  "  That's 
just  what  it  is,"  said  Tom;  "that's  just  where  I 
want  your  assistance  as  a  clever  and  much-attached 
friend.  You  know  you  love  me,  Charlie  !  What  a 
glorious  time  we  had  of  it  the  other  night  at  the 


122  TOM  GENT  [chap.  XII 

Beefsteak  Club  !  You  are  quicker  at  verse-making 
than  any  of  them,  and  I  Hke  your  poems  best.  You 
must  help  me,  Charlie  !  So  must  Matthew  Hill,  and 
that  scrub,  Joey  Davis,  and  Steer;  and  then  if  you 
can  only  get  a  few  verses  out  of  some  of  your  Etonian 
or  Cantab,  friends,  we  shall  cook  up  a  volume  in  a 
week,  and  have  it  out  on  magazine  day,  at  the  end 
of  the  month." 

Over  luncheon,  and  a  glass  or  two  of  sherry.  Knight 
agreed  to  do  his  part,  and  a  good  deal  more.  Gent 
next  found  out  Hill  at  his  chambers  in  Chancery 
Lane,  and  booked  him;  and  later  in  the  day,  with  a 
beefsteak,  a  bottle  of  port,  and  a  glass  of  gin  and 
water,  he  removed  the  repugnance  or  reluctance  of 
Joey  Davis.  In  a  very  short  time  the  volume 
appeared,  bearing  on  the  title-page:  "  Poems,  by 
Thomas  Gent,  Gent."  I  have  not  seen  the  book, 
this  real  curiosity  of  literature,  for  many  a  year, 
but  I  believe  that  not  a  sixth  part  of  it  was  written 
by  old  Tom. 

His  verses  may  be  known  by  Matthew  Hill's  parody 

of  them : 

"  Have  you  seen  Distraction's  child 
Wandering  on  the  Desert  wild  ?" 

The  Gentian  verses  all  run  to  this  tune.  At  one 
time,  this  Falstaff  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  said 
to  purvey,  in  more  ways  than  one,  for  Covent  Garden, 
Drury  Lane,  the  minor  theatres,  and  Vauxhall.  At 
the  last-named  place  ludicrous,  side-sphtting  scenes 
used  to  take  place  between  Tom  and  the  Master  of 
the  Ceremonies,  that  poor  crack-brained  creature, 
Simpson,  whose  eccentricities,  and  public  and  con- 
stant exhibitions  of  them,  were  fair  matter  for  joking 
and  quizzing,  although  a  very  heavy  *'  droll  "  in 
The  Times  newspaper  wore  the  matter  threadbare, 
and  ended  by  exciting  compassion  for  the  insane 
caperer. 

Whenever  Tom  arrived,  which  he  never  did  without 
having  half  a  dozen  or  more  young  and  frolicsome 


CHAP,  xii]  A  TRUE  FALSTAFF  123 

fellows  with  him,  he  would  accost  Simpson,  flourishing 
his  hat  in  his  hand,  and  saying: 

"  Well,  Simpson,  fine  night ! 

Stars  shine  bright, 

Moon  gives  hght. 
Arc  there  many  here  to-night  ? 
Are  the  gardens  fiUing,  you  old  scarecrow  ?" 

Then,  with  a  polite  wave  of  his  hat,  the  Vauxhall 
M.C.  would  say:  "  Distinguished  visitor,  great  poet, 
most  illustrious  signor  !  the  gardens  are  filling  fast, 
and  will  fill  the  faster  now  that  you  are  come  1  You 
will  find  an  excellent  lobster-salad  in  that  corner 
box,  near  the  Turkish  kiosk  !" 

One  of  the  principal  occupations  of  Tom's  life  was 
getting  up  dining  clubs,  arranging  hotel  or  tavern 
dinners,  or  picnics  in  Richmond  Park,  dinners  at 
the  Star  and  Garter,  or  whitebait  dinners  at  Green- 
wich or  Blackwall.  Though  they  got  no  money 
from  him,  nor  ever  expected  any,  he  must,  during 
his  long  career,  have  put  a  world  of  coins  and  cheques 
into  the  hands  of  tavern-keepers  and  landlords. 
They  were  not  ungrateful  for  past  favours,  nor  un- 
mindful of  the  future  benefits  he  might  confer  upon 
their  houses,  by  making  parties  or  getting  up  clubs; 
he  had  a  knife  and  fork  at  nearly  every  noted  estab- 
lishment in  London,  and  the  bottle  of  wine  was  always 
forthcoming.  He  would  very  often  consider  himself 
entitled  to  take  a  friend  or  two  with  him. 

The  "  Freemasons,"  and  those  other  great  dinner- 
giving  houses,  had  always  such  a  larder  1 

Besides  the  profit  they  obtained,  not  from  him,  but 
by  him,  the  worthy  Bonifaces  got  a  world  of  fun  and 
laughter  out  of  him.  In  this  no  man  could  be  a 
truer  FalstafT.  Tom,  like  Sir  John,  was  not  only 
witty  himself,  but  the  cause  of  wit  in  others.  He 
was  accustomed  to  say,  that  if  he  could  eat  them, 
he  could,  in  any  one  day,  get  half  a  dozen  dinners 
in  London,  without  paying,  and  with  thanks  for  his 
company. 


124  TOM  GENT  [chap,  xii 

Yet  for  many  years  that  he  was  leading  this 
rolUcking,  feasting,  drinking  tavern-Hfe,  haunting 
playhouses  and  green  rooms,  Thomas  Gent,  Gent., 
had  a  very  ladylike,  charming,  and  perfectly  well- 
conducted  wife.  This  rare,  excellent  woman,  never 
complaining,  seemed  to  her  death  to  be  much  attached 
to  a  man  who,  after  all,  must  be  called  a  bloated 
buffoon — a  coarse,  drunken  Mephistopheles,  a  seducer 
of  young  men,  a  corrupter  of  other  women's  husbands. 

But  there  were  more  marvels  yet  in  the  life  of  this 
Yarmouth  bloater. 

When  his  first  wife  had  been  dead  a  good  many 
years,  when  he  was  past  the  age  of  three  score,  when 
his  hair  was  white  rather  than  grey,  he  took  to 
going  to  a  church  near  Fitzroy  Square,  with  no 
serious  intent  it  is  to  be  feared,  and  there  struck 
up  an  acquaintance  with  one  of  the  daughters  of 
an  eminent  landscape  -  painter  and  Royal  Acade- 
mician, a  well-educated,  well  brought-up,  good- 
looking,  graceful  woman  of  about  six  or  seven  and 
twenty.  He  amused  her  by  his  wit  and  drollery, 
and  ended  by  quite  captivating  her,  or  completely 
turning  her  head.  "  What  can  I  do  ?"  said  Falstaff 
to  Knight;  "  the  girl  will  have  me,  the  father  can't 
stop  it,  and  I  can't  help  it.  We  must  be  married; 
and  I,  like  Sir  John,  must  try  and  live  cleanly." 

He  put  another  colouring  on  the  business  :  according 
to  him,  he  had  concerted  no  plan,  had  contemplated 
no  advantages;  he  had  turned  the  poor  girl's  head 
without  wishing  it,  or  thinking  that  he  was  doing  it, 
and  he  would  marry  her  only  to  prevent  worse  con- 
sequences. Married  they  were;  but  I  suspect  that 
Tom,  who  for  some  two  or  three  years  had  been 
getting  out  at  elbows,  and  who  had  been  finding  that 
his  friends  and  boon  companions  were  gradually 
falling  from  him,  either  by  death  or  through  weariness 
of  his  jokes  and  of  his  society,  looked  to  his  wife's 
proficiency  and  ability  as  a  portrait-painter  for  the 
means    of   supplying    in    future    his    comforts    and 


CHAP,  xii]       HIS  SECOND  MARRIAGE  125 

luxuries,  which    last  were  always  with  him    neces- 
saries, absolute  necessaries  of  life.     I  know  that  he 
turned  "  touter  "  for  his  new  wife,  and  obtained  a 
I  good  many  sitters.     Shortly  after  this,  we  entirely 

j  lost  sight  of  him;  but   I   believe  he  died,  in  great 

ease  if  not  jollity,  about  eighteen  years  ago. 


10 


CHAPTER    XIII 

VISCOUNT  DILLON 

On  the  fly-leaf  of  a  copy  of  his  lordship's  wild  poem 
"  Eccelino  da  Romano,"  I  have  written: 

"  I  have  preserved  this  wild  book  out  of  regard 
for  the  memory  of  its  author.  Poor  Lord  Dillon  ! 
His  eccentricities  bordered  on  insanity,  but  he  was 
kind  to  me,  in  my  youth,  and  in  a  foreign  land,  where, 
as  yet,  I  had  all  my  friends  to  make." 

I  first  knew  him  at  Florence,  when  that  fair  city, 
rather  full  of  English,  was  ringing  with  stories  of  his 
eccentricities,  and  with  the  fame  of  his  daughter's 
beauty.  He  was  frank,  fearless,  very  capricious; 
but,  as  I  believed,  a  generous,  warm-hearted  man. 
The  worst  of  his  eccentricities  w^as  a  total  disbelief 
in  Christianity,  or  in  any  revealed  religion — a  sort  of 
jumbling  mad-reasoning  materialism.  And  with  him 
materialism  was  a  very  different  and  a  much  more 
withering  and  repulsive  thing  than  it  was  with  poor 
Shelley. 

There  was  an  epigram  in  circulation  in  the  English 
part  of  society  in  Florence;  I  know  not  who  wrote 
it,  nor  am  I  quite  sure  that  I  retain  the  lines  cor- 
rectly, but  they  were  something  like  these : 

"  Dillon,  go  home  !     Consult  thy  daughter's  looks, 
Peruse  them  well,  and  burn  thy  atheist  books. 
Read  in  those  angel  eyes  and  heavenly  face 
That  there's  a  God — then  supplicate  His  grace." 

Florence  was  almost  raving  about  the  beautiful 
Miss  Dillon.  Travelling  much  abroad,  out  of  the 
way  of  English  newspapers,  and  never  being  much 

126 


CHAP,  xiii]  LADY  STANLEY  127 

addicted  to  the  perusal  of  births  and  marriages,  1 
never  knew  until  the  other  day  that  this  charming 
person  is  wife  to  Lord  Stanley  of  Alderley,  cousin 
to  my  accomplished  friend  and  kindest  benefactor, 
the  Rev.  A.  P.  Stanley,  and  mother  of  Mr.  Stanley, 
late  of  the  Foreign  Office,  and  now  chargd  d'affaires 
at  Athens,  a  very  clever  young  man,  a  Chinese  scholar, 
an  accomplished  philologist,  and  a  great  admirer  of 
my  old,  learned,  and  most  ingenious  friend,  Edwin 
N  orris. 

But,  being  violently  a  philo-Turk,  the  young 
diplomatist  was  no  friend  to  me  or  to  my  books 
about  Turkey.  Perhaps  here  I  ought  to  have  used 
the  past  tense,  as  before  he  had  been  a  month  at 
Constantinople  he  agreed  that  all  I  had  said  about 
that  pandemonium  was  strictly  true,  and  as  he  has 
now  been  living  more  than  three  years  in  the  Levant, 
he  must  have  greatly  modified  his  philo-Turkism. 
I  should  always  have  towards  him  a  warm  corner 
of  the  heart  on  account  of  his  maternal  grandfather 
and  the  heavenly  face  of  his  mother,  whom  I  have 
never  seen  since  her  Florentine  days;  or,  if  I  have 
seen  her,  I  have  done  so  without  recognizing  her. 
How  often  does  this  happen  I  One  passes  in  the 
streets,  or  in  some  crowded  place  of  resort,  a  person 
in  whom  one  was  so  deeply  interested  some  thirty  or 
forty  years  ago;  one  may  stand  side  by  side  with 
such  a  person,  in  a  state  of  the  most  perfect  in- 
difference, not  knowing  her  or  him — as  the  case  may 
be — and  not  having  the  least  consciousness  of  the 
presence  of  such  a  person.  Then,  in  England,  if 
one  had,  what  could  one  say  or  du  ?  After  such  a 
deluge  of  3'ears,  at  least  two  or  three  reintroductions 
would  be  requisite. 

Her  ladyship's  mother  appeared  to  be  a  quiet, 
amiable,  domestic  woman;  but  I  was  told  that  she 
had,  mixed  witli  good  common  sense,  a  fair  share  of 
wit.  One  of  the  man}'  subjects  with  which  Lord  Dillon, 
who  would  not  take  the  Scriptural  version,  delighted 


128     SIR  LUMLEY  SKEFFINGTON      [chap,  xiii 

to  cudgel  his  brain  and  to  perplex  those  of  other 
people,  was  the  Origin  of  Evil.  One  evening  at  the 
Prince  of  I.'s,  when  she  was  with  him,  he  rode  this 
hobby  at  a  most  wearisome  rate.  Her  ladyship, 
quite  worn  out,  said  smartly  but  not  ill-humouredly : 
"  Dillon,  I  know  the  origin  of  my  evil.  It  was  in 
marrying  a  metaphysician  like  you  I" 


SIR  LUMLEY  ST.  GEORGE  SKEFFINGTON 

(1771-1850) 

I  knew,  by  sight,  this  rhyming,  playgoing,  comedy- 
writing,  philandering  baronet,  in  the  years  181 3 
and  1 8 14.  I  used  to  see  him  at  the  theatres,  in  the 
Park,  or  lounging  in  Bond  Street.  I  was  a  boy  at 
the  time,  and  much  addicted  to  rhyming  and  play- 
going  myself.  He  was  first  pointed  out  to  my  notice 
as  a  literary  and  dramatic  celebrity,  and  as  a  London 
lion,  by  a  lady  who  wrote  occasional  verses,  and 
who  had  once  written  a  tragedy,  which,  in  the  par- 
lance of  John  Wilson  the  poet,  had  been  "  particularly 

d d."     His   fame   was   now   on   the   decline,   for 

Scott,  Moore,  Byron,  and  others  were  in  the  field; 
but  a  few  years  before,  and  from  about  1790  to  1809, 
the  Baronet  had  been  considered  a  star  of  the  first 
magnitude. 

Dear  me  I  How  easy  it  was  for  a  man  to  get  into 
reputation  as  an  author  in  those  days,  especially  if 
he  had  a  bit  of  a  handle  to  his  name,  an  entree  in 
Society,  a  fashionable  friend  or  two,  and  money  to 
carry  on  the  war  for  a  while  !  My  authoress  still 
called  him  "  the  celebrated  Skefiington."  He  had 
begun  by  acting  in  private  theatricals,  and  by  inditing 

"  Songs  and  sonnets  and  rustical  madrigals, 
Made  out  of  nothing  and  whistled  on  reeds," 

But  these  things  had  been  declared  to  be  charming, 
musical,  exquisite;  and  the  bard  had  worn  laurels 


CHAP,  xiii]        SKEFFINGTON'S  PLAYS  129 

enough  to  conceal  his  hakhiess.  Afterwards  he  had 
written  some  half-doz(^n  comedies,  and  had  pro- 
duced a  very  telling  melodrama,  "  The  Sleeping 
Beauty,"  all  of  which  have  long  been  forgotten. 
Even  then  he  seemed,  in  my  juvenile  eyes,  a  battered, 
shattered,  made-up  old  beau,  wearing  false  teeth, 
a  portentous  and  most  artificial  wig,  and  was  sus- 
pected of  painting  his  cheeks.  He  was  styled  "  of 
Skeffington  Hall,  Leicestershire,"  but  he  had  nothing 
of  the  Leicestershire  baronet  about  him.  He  was 
thoroughly  a  Cockney;  born  in  one  suburb  of  London 
(St.  Pancras),  educated  in  Hackney,  he  lived  many 
years  in  South wark,  and  passed  nearly  all  the  rest 
of  his  time  in  the  purlieus  of  Covent  Garden  and 
Drury  Lane.  His  father,  the  first  baronet,  was  a 
Lieutenant-Colonel  in  the  Army,  Ferral  by  name, 
but  he  took  the  surname  and  arms  of  Skeffington, 
by  Royal  Warrant,  in  1772.  I  thought  "  old  Skeff  " 
must  have  been  dead  long  ago,  when  one  evening 
in  1 83 1,  as  I  entered  Drury  Lane  Theatre  with  H., 
who  knew  the  whole  theatrical  world,  and  two  ladies, 
we  met  the  Baronet  in  the  lobby,  to  all  appearance 
not  very  much  the  worj^e  for  seventeen  years  more 
wear.  H.  accosted  him  with  the  familiarity  of  old 
acquaintanceship;  "  Old  Lummy,"  "  old  Skeff,"  or 
"  old  Sleeping  Beauty,"  for  he  had  these  nicknames 
and  many  more,  was  not  the  man  to  hurry  from 
two  pretty  women;  he  buttonholed  my  friend,  got 
into  talk,  and  H.  presented  him  to  the  ladies,  and 
me  to  him.  He  was  as  gallant  as  an  old  French 
marquis  of  the  ancicn  ri^gime. 

He  left  us  to  go  behind  the  scenes  and  into  the 
Green  Room,  where  he  had  an  appointment  of  im- 
portance; and  we  went  into  Lady  Holland's  private 
i)ox,  graciously  lent  to  me  by  her  ladyship  for  that 
evening.  I  expressed  my  astonishment  at  the  ap- 
parition I  had  seen  in  the  lobby.  "  Oh  1"  said  IL, 
"  old  Skeff  is  much  as  he  was  fifteen  years  ago, 
except  that  he  stoops  a  little  more,  and  wears  a  wig 


I30     SIR  LUMLEY  SKEFFINGTON      [chap,  xiii 

made  not  of  human  hair  but  of  black  horse-hair,  to 
which  he  attributes  many  advantages  both  of  com- 
fort and  appearance.  He  must  be  getting  on  to 
seventy,  but  he  still  plays  the  young  man,  and  his 
heart  and  head  seem  to  be  as  young  as  ever.'* 
Presently  we  saw  old  Lum  in  the  stage-box,  at  the 
opposite  side  of  the  theatre,  now  leering  at  the 
actresses  on  the  stage,  now  ogling  the  ladies  in  the 
dress-circle  and  the  private  boxes,  and  now  fre- 
quently standing  up,  projecting  his  horse-hair  wig, 
and  bowing  to  some  gentleman  or  kissing  his  hand, 
more  antico,  to  some  lady  or  ladies. 

Next  to  the  actors  and  actresses,  he  was  making 
himself  the  most  conspicuous  person  in  the  house. 
Before  long  he  was  up  in  our  box,  and  making  down- 
right love  to  Miss  ,  who  had  great  difficulty  in 

preventing  herself  from  laughing  in  his  face,  as  he 
was  so  outre,  and  she  could  not  help  thinking  of  the 
horse-hair  wig.  He  then  rattled  on,  like  one  who 
has  lived  la  vie  des  coulisses,  about  this  actress  and 
that,  and  this  Green-Room  quarrel  and  that  other, 

and  how  Mrs. became  too  soon  jealous  of  Miss 

,  and  thwarted  her  in  her  parts,  and  how  Sir  T. 

stood  by  Mrs. ,  and  how  Lord took  the  part 

of  Miss  ,  and  got  the  parties  reconciled  in  the 

presence  of  the  stage-manager  and  half  a  dozen  of 
the  proprietors.  He  seemed  to  know  all  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Green  Room,  and  all  its  tattle  and  bicker- 
ings for  the  last  half-century.  This  was  not  un- 
amusing,  but  it  did  not  bear  thinking  of  afterwards. 

To  be  so  old,  and  vet  so  trivial  !  To  have  lived 
so  long  in  the  world,  and  to  have  one's  head  stuffed 
full  of  nothing  but  this,  and  "  tags  "  of  play-speeches 
and  rhymes  !  To  be  so  bent,  shrunk,  and  withered, 
and  yet  never  to  think  of  death  !  Was  there  no 
honest  rector,  no  zealous  curate,  no  thoughtful  friend, 
to  tell  him  that  he  had  an  immortal  soul,  however 
little  he  might  think  of  it,  and  to  say  to  him,  "  Go 
to  your  prayers,  old  man  !"     Yet  the  Baronet  lived  a 


CHAP,  xiii]    SATIRIZED  BY  BYRON  131 

good  nineteen  years  after  this,  not  dying  until  1850, 
when  he  was  in  his  eighty-fourth  or  eighty-fifth  year. 
He  was  one  of  a  good  many  examples  I  have  known, 
that  late  hours  and  other  irregularities  of  life  do  not, 
of  necessity,  or  in  all  cases,  abridge  the  duration  of 
human  existence.  As  the  theatres  declined,  or  as  I 
lost  my  taste  for  that  kind  of  amusement,  I  seldom 
again  saw  old  Skcff,  who  I  believe  was  to  be 
found  almost  to  the  last  at  some  playhouse  or 
other. 

I  met  him  one  morning  at  old  Andrews'  library 
in  Bond  Street;  another  day  I  met  him  walking 
towards  one  of  the  theatres  with  Liston  the  comedian, 
and  the  last  time  I  saw  him  was  about  the  time  of 
Her  Majesty's  marriage  with  Prince  Albert.  At  this 
period  he  was  bent  almost  double,  but  the  horse- 
hair wig  was  on  his  head  and  the  rouge  on  his  cheeks, 
and  he  was  as  frivolous  as  ever.  The  exoterics  had 
been  accustomed  to  call  him  a  dandy.  A  great 
mistake  !  for  his  style  and  manners  were  reprobated 
by  Brummell,  Mildmay,  and  all  the  set,  who  pro- 
nounced old  SkefT  to  be  a  quizzical  guy.  For  the 
last  forty  years  of  his  life  he  was  quite  unfashionable, 
and  pretty  well  confined  to  the  society  of  actors 
and  actresses,  and  of  a  few  young  men  of  fashion, 
like  my  friend  H.,  who  had  a  mania  for  the  stage 
and  for  private  theatricals. 

Old  Skeff,  who  would  dangle  about  fifty  women 
at  a  time,  was  not  the  man  to  marry,  and  in  him 
the  baronetcy  became  extinct.  He  was  thought  of 
sufficient  consequence  to  be  satirized  by  Byron  in 
"  English  and  Scotch  Reviewers,"  by  Tommy  Moore 
in  his  "  Twopenny  Post-bag,"  and  by  the  Smiths  in 
their  "  Rejected  Addresses."  Though  often  in  debt, 
he  had  never  known  the  pangs  or  the  actual  pressure 
of  poverty,  and  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life  he 
is  said  to  have  had  a  free  income  of  from  ^^600  to 
;{^8oo  a  year.  I  have  seen  it  stated  that  he  was  the 
author  of  that  rich  piece  of  burlesque,  "  Bombastes 


132  JOHN  HOOKHAM  FRERE     [chap,  xiii 

Furioso,"  which  still  keeps  possession  of  the  stage; 
but  I  rather  doubt  the  fact.  His  ''  Sleeping  Beauty  " 
had  a  wonderful  run.  Though  so  unmanly  and  so 
frivolous,  I  never  heard  of  poor  old  Lummy  doing 
any  great  harm,  and  he  was  said  to  have  been  always 
amiable  and  good-natured.  There  were  much  w^orse 
men,  in  his  time. 

I  think  I  have  hinted  that  my  acquaintance,  fat 
old  Andrews  the  bookseller,  circulating  library  keeper, 
and  opera-box  letter,  of  Bond  Street,  was  a  bon 
vivant.     He  was  a  dreadful  gourmand. 

On  the  day  when  he  was  dying,  and  would  not 
believe  it,  he  ordered  some  fresh  cod  for  his  dinner. 
A  servant  took  the  dish  to  his  bedside;  he  eyed  it, 
missed  the  savoury  bits,  exclaimed  in  an  excited 
manner  ''  Where's  the  sounds  ?"  dropped  his  head 
on  the  pillow,  and  so  died. 


THE  RT.  HON.  JOHN  HOOKHAM  FRERE 

I  have  known  in  my  time  a  good  many  very  absent- 
minded  men,  but  never  one  that  came  near  to  this 
wit,  poet,  and  diplomat  manque.  I  knew  him  at 
Malta  in  1827,  and  received  much  kindness  from  him. 
He  would  dine  at  the  same  table  and  have  long  talks 
with  you  to-day,  and  would  not  know  you  if  you 
met  him  in  the  streets  to-morrow.  If  he  called  you 
by  your  right  name  in  the  morning,  he  would  be 
pretty  sure  to  call  you  by  a  wrong  one  in  the  after- 
noon or  evening.  Worse  still,  he  would  invite  you 
to  dinner,  forget  all  about  it,  and  have  dined,  or  be 
dining,  when  you  got  to  his  house  at  La  Pietd.  If 
anything  were  told  to  him  that  was  on  no  account 
to  be  repeated,  he  was  almost  sure  to  tell  it  to  the 
first  friend  or  acquaintance  he  met.  His  scholarship, 
his  wit,  his  poetry,  and  perhaps  most  of  all  his  school 
fellowship  with  George  Canning,  got  him  into  diplo- 
macy; the  profession  for  which,  of  all  others,  he  was 


CHAP,  xiii]         SIR  JOHN  MOORE  133 

by  nature,  habit,  and  an  incurable  infirmity,  about 
the  least  fitted. 

He  ought  to  have  been  a  country  parson  with  a 
good  fat  living,  or  the  Dean  of  a  Cathedral,  though 
I  fear  that  even  in  such  a  post  he  must  have  com- 
mitted himself  through  his  propensity  to  let  his  head 
go  a-wool-gathering.  The  history  of  his  embassy 
to  Madrid,  and  his  conduct  there  in  1808-09,  which 
completel}^  deceived  Sir  John  Moore,  and  led  to  the 
disastrous  retreat  to  Corunna,  cannot  be  forgotten 
nor  recalled  without  pain,  nor  without  regret  that  he 
should  have  been  diplomatically  employed  in  such 
a  country.  In  Spain,  he  was  disqualified  not  only 
by  his  absent-mindedness,  but  by  a  blind  uncalcu- 
lating  enthusiasm  for  the  Spaniards — a  malady  which 
his  friend  Southey  shared  with  him.  He  was  very 
fond  of  Spanish  literature,  particularly  its  poetry. 
He  had  gained  great  reputation  as  a  youth  by  a 
spirited  translation  of  the  "  Cid  ";  he  took  the 
Spaniards  to  be  as  heroical  as  in  the  days  of  the 
Campeador,  and  he  appears  to  have  taken  every 
Spanish  Don  or  General  for  a  real  Cid. 

He  kept  dreaming  on,  on  the  banks  of  the  Man- 
zanares,  while  the  English  army,  abandoned  b}^  his 
Spanish  heroes,  was  getting  into  terrible  difficulties; 
and  he  did  not  awake  until  Moore  was  killed,  and  his 
army  re-embarked  for  Portugal.  It  was  Frere  who, 
by  his  mistaken  representations  and  earnest  entreaties, 
induced  our  Government  to  order  Sir  John's  advance 
upon  Madrid.  This  was  a  responsibility  from  which 
the  diplomatist  could  never  be  cleared.  It  was  a 
mistake,  a  blunder;  but  Frere  would  remain  less 
inexcusable  if,  after  our  retreat,  he  had  not,  to  cover 
himself,  accused  Moore,  as  brave  a  soldier  as  ever 
drew  sword,  of  something  very  like  cowardice,  as 
well  as  of  indecision  and  want  of  military'  ability. 
This  last  was  a  black  spot  on  Frere 's  scutcheon,  but 
I  believe  the  only  one  that  was  ever  there.  When 
the  Duke  took  command  of  our  forces  in  the  Penin- 


134  JOHN  HOOKHAM  FRERE     [chap,  xiii 

sula,  he  said  to  a  friend:  *'  I  hope  the  Government 
will  remove  that  wit  and  poet  from  Madrid,  and  send 
a  man  who  doesn't  dream,  and  has  common  sense, 
to  supply  his  place  !" 

Government  sent  the  Duke's  own  brother,  the 
Marquis  Wellesley;  and  Frere  retired  on  a  comfort- 
able ambassadorial  pension,  and  the  honours  of  a 
"  Right  Honourable."  He  was  never  employed  again, 
either  diplomatically  or  otherwise,  and  never  wished 
to  be  so.  He  fell  back  upon  his  books,  and  upon  his 
rhymes,  pleasant  fancies,  jests,  and  drolleries;  and 
there  he  had  few  rivals.  Not  long  after  the  peace 
he  married  the  Dowager  Countess  of  Errol,  who  had 
a  comfortable  jointure.  Her  ladyship  soon  began 
to  suffer  from  asthma.  After  trying  many  places, 
she  fancied  that  what  suited  her  best  was  the  island 
of  Malta;  and  there  they  fixed  themselves,  remained 
many  years  without  once  quitting  it,  and  there  they 
both  died  and  lie  interred.  Numerous  were  their 
deeds  of  charity;  and  great,  and  to  some  extent 
lasting,  was  the  good  done  at  Malta  by  Lady  Errol 
and  her  poet.  Her  ladyship,  in  conjunction  at  first 
with  the  Marchioness  of  Hastings  and  her  daughters, 
and  then  with  Lady  Emily  Ponsonby,  got  together 
money  enough  to  form  a  place  of  retreat  for  many 
aged  and  infirm  Maltese,  and  to  establish  an  industrial 
school,  where  children  of  both  sexes  were  educated 
and  brought  up  to  be  useful  and  gain  their  own 
honest  livelihood.  Lady  Errol  was  the  greatest 
benefactress  of  these  institutions,  for  she  gave  to 
them  not  only  her  money  but  a  great  deal  of  her 
time  and  attention. 

That  pest  of  revolting  mendicity  and  street  begging, 
which  had  so  troubled  all  strangers,  had  begun  almost 
to  disappear,  when  those  who  founded  the  alms- 
houses and  the  school  were  recalled  to  England  or 
removed  by  death,  and  when  our  reforming  Whig 
ministry  persisted  in  sending  out  reforming  governors 
and     systematizing     commissioners,     who     chilled, 


CHAP,  xiii]        HIS  LIFE  IN  MALTA  135 

checked,  and  threw  back  the  fountain  streams  of 
spontaneous  charity  and  voluntary  contribution,  and 
failed  to  supply  their  place  with  other  waters. 

In  1847-48,  I  thought  I  saw  more  bet^garsin  Valetta 
than  I  had  ever  seen  there  before.  One  of  the  most 
active  of  Lady  Errol's  helpers  was  poor  Lady  Flora 
Hastings,  second  daughter  to  the  Marquis,  who  died 
in  his  government  and  was  buried  in  Malta  in  tlie 
year  1826.  There  were  some  Maltese  not  destitute 
of  gratitude,  for  in  1827  I  found,  nearly  evxry  morning, 
the  grave  strewed  with  fresh  flowers. 

The  Marquis  was  succeeded  by  General  Sir  Frederic 
Ponsonby,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  our 
Waterloo  heroes,  who  remained  until  1830,  when 
Ministers,  who  wanted  his  place  for  a  Whig,  recalled 
him.  With  these  two  Governors  the  poet  and  his 
lady  were  in  the  closest  intimacy  and  confidence; 
and  they,  as  well  as  the  whole  island,  had  a  happy 
time  while  this  regime  lasted,  and  while  as  yet  our 
reformers  had  not  turned  the  heads  and  alienated  the 
affections  of  the  Maltese  people  by  giving  them 
liberty  of  the  Press,  the  right  of  choosing  their 
magistrates  and  judges,  and  by  making  other  con- 
cessions which  never  should  have  been  made  to  such 
a  people,  placed  in  such  circumstances. 

Rose  thought  that  now  Frere  must  be  driven  home 
to  England — an  event  which  he  luartily  desired — 
and  that  with  his  strong  Toryism  he  would  never  be 
able  to  stand  these  new  Governors,  these  Commis- 
sioners, and  all  that  Whig  and  Radical  inundation 
which  set  in  as  soon  as  Earl  Grey  got  to  the  helm 
and  had  command  of  the  sluice-gates. 

But  Lady  Errol  fancied  she  could  not  live  else- 
where, and  the  poet  took  to  thinking  of  something 
else;  not,  as  I  fancy,  that  he  had  ever  bestowed 
very  much  thought  upon  politics  since  quitting 
diplomacy  and  his  country.  Year  after  year  I  con- 
tinued to  receive  by  letter,  or  to  hear,  some  account 
or  other  of  his  eccentricity,  absent-mindedness,  and 


136  JOHN   HOOKHAM   FRERE      [chap,  xiii 

active  benevolence.  With  a  little  more  industry,  or 
only  a  little  more  steadiness  of  purpose,  he  might 
have  done  more  justice  to  himself,  and  have  written 
a  great  deal  more;  but  on  the  whole,  he  must  have 
passed  a  very  happy,  or  at  least  a  very  easy,  quiet, 
dreamy  life.  He  has  left  enough  behind  him  to 
secure  a  permanent  niche  in  the  Temple  of  poetical 
Fame;  his  name  will  be  kept  alive  in  the  popular 
mind  by  the  correspondence  of  Lord  Byron,  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  Southey,  and  of  others  among  the  best 
of  his  literary  contemporaries. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

LORD  DUDLEY  AND  WARD 

In  the  neighbourhood  of  Rome,  on  the  top  of  Mount 
Soracte,  I  met  an  EngHsh  gentleman,  followed  by  a 
high-bred,  unmistakable  English  dog,  the  sort  of 
dear  creature  I  had  not  seen  for  some  years.  I  was 
little  more  than  a  youth  at  that  time  (1821),  and 
even  now  that  I  am  getting  into  the  vecchi  anni  I 
am  not  ashamed  to  confess  that  at  the  time  of  this 
meeting  I  was  amusing  myself  by  pitching  stones 
down  the  steep  end  of  the  Horatian  mountain,  to 
see  how  far  they  would  roll,  and  how  many  they 
would  carry  along  with  them ;  and  that  my  acquaint- 
ance with  an  illustrious  man  was  preceded  by  my 
making  friends  with  his  dog.  The  gentleman,  a 
great  many  years  my  senior,  addressed  me,  and  we 
got  into  talk  about  the  Campagna  of  Rome,  a  good 
part  of  which  lay  outspread  beneath  us,  about  the 
malaria,  and  other  topical  subjects.  I  was  greatly 
struck  by  the  originality  and  spirit  of  some  of  his 
remarks,  and  could  easily  make  out  that  he  was  a 
high-bred  and  highly  educated  man.  Such  a  descrip- 
tion of  person  was  not,  and,  thank  God  1  is  not  yet, 
very  rare  among  Englishmen  in  easy  or  even  uneasy 
circumstances. 

We  parted  on  the  ridge  of  Soracte,  without  my 
knowing  or  much  caring  who  or  what  he  was.  But, 
not  many  days  after,  I  renewed  my  acquaintance 
with  the  beautiful  dog  and  his  master  in  the  Colos- 
seum, when  the  talking  unit  of  the  duo  very  kindly 
recognized   me,   and   fell   into   talk — clever,  original, 

137 


138  LORD  DUDLEY  [chap,  xiv 

delightful  talk.  Shortly  after  this,  I  met  him  again 
at  the  house  of  Torlonia,  the  Roman  Prince-banker; 
and  there,  for  the  first  time,  learned  that  he  was  the 
Hon.  H.  Ward,  heir  to  the  Earldom  of  Dudley  and 
Ward.  Even  then,  he  was  very  wealthy,  and  w^as 
living  at  Rome  in  princely  style. 

We  again  met  repeatedly;  he  was  exceedingly  kind, 
and  what  was  more,  exceedingly  amusing;  and  if 
not  instructive,  suggestive.  But  I  was  shy  of  his 
rank ;  and  had,  at  that  time,  rather  a  mistaken  notion 
of  the  morgue  of  our  English  aristocracy. 

Long  after  this,  in  the  late  autumn  or  winter  of 
1829,  when  I  used  to  follow  the  harriers  across 
Brighton  Downs,  I  several  times  saw,  and  now  and 
then  rode  side  by  side  with,  a  very  peculiar,  odd- 
mannered  gentleman  who  bent  forward  as  he  galloped, 
and  was  generally  talking  to  his  horse,  quite  audibly, 
as  well  as  patting  his  neck.  It  struck  me  that  some- 
where in  this  wide  world  I  had  seen  him  before,  but 
I  could  not  remember  where.  Feeling  a  little  excited 
by  my  uncertainty  and  doubt,  I  spoke  to  William 
Stewart  Rose,  who  guessed  from  my  description  of 
the  gentleman  that  it  must  be  Lord  Lake.  But, 
one  morning,  as  I  was  reading  some  Italian  book, 
and  Rose  was  spouting  Greek,  ore  rotundo,  in  his 
library,  Dan  Hinves  came  in  and  said:  **  Lord,  sir  ! 
here's  Lord  Dudley  and  Ward  !"  "  Show  his  lord- 
ship in  !"  said  Rose,  and  in  came  my  acquaintance 
of  Mount  Soracte  and  of  the  Downs.  Nine  or  ten 
years  make  a  great  difference  in  any  man,  whether 
he  be  young  or  old ;  but  most,  if  the  elder  be  not  past 
the  "  mezzo  cammin,'*  in  a  youth.  His  lordship 
could  not  have  recognized  me,  but  I  must  say  that 
I  was  excusable  in  not  recognizing  him,  for  he  was 
sadly  and  fearfully  altered  and  changed,  far  more 
than  the  mere  progress  of  time  would  account  for. 
He  had  been  ill,  excited  and  perplexed  by  the  duties 
of  office  as  Foreign  Secretary;  and  for  some  time 
he  had  betrayed  symptoms  of  the  unhappy  malady 


CHAP,  xiv]  DAN  HINVES  139 

which  made  him  the  object  of  a  keeper's  care,  and 
which  not  long  after  this  brought  him  to  his  grave. 

But  when  Rose  had  presented  me,  and  had  said 
a  few  kind  words  about  me,  I  recalled  to  his  lordship 
the  Soracte  meeting,  and  spoke  of  a  few  other  things 
which  brought  me  back  to  his  recollection,  and  upon 
this  he  cordially  greeted  me.  We  fell,  a  la  Roue, 
into  desultory  and  very  cheerful  talk,  in  which, 
with  a  few  intervals  of  abstraction.  Lord  Dudley 
took  his  fair  part.  We  talked  so  long  that  Dan 
Hinves  came  in  to  announce  our  early  dinner.  **  Rose," 
said  his  lordship,  "  will  you  let  me  stay  and  partake 
of  your  polenta  or  minestra  ?  I  am  amused  where 
I  am,  and  don't  know  how  much  I  may  be  bored 
where  I  may  go,  if  I  leave  you."  My  host  was 
delighted  at  the  proposition.  Here  this  man  of  high 
rank,  of  eminent  wit,  of  social  qualities,  and  of 
enormous  wealth,  made  a  confession  which  struck 
me  and  which  has  haunted  my  mind  ever  since, 
greatly  to  the  disparagement  of  our  stiff,  formal, 
London  society,  that  he  hardly  knew  a  man  to  whom 
he  could  invite  himself  to  dinner,  and  that  he  knew 
only  two  or  three  houses  where  he  could  drop  in  to 
tea,  or  even  ask  for  a  cup  of  tea,  without  being 
invited.  This  was  said  at  the  end  of  1829.  Have 
we  mended  these  matters  since  then  ?  In  the 
evening,  Mr.  Hallam  dropped  in,  and  the  conversa- 
tion, as  befitting  a  grave  historian,  became  more 
serious. 

But  here  I  was  sorry  to  see  that  Lord  Dudley 
became  more  abstracted  and  at  times  quite  flighty. 
As  I  was  putting  on  my  cloak  and  wrapper  to  walk 
home  with  hini,  Hinves  whispered  in  my  ear:  "  Take 
care,  zur,  for  he  is  queer  in  the  head." 

Rose,  who  had  known  him  intimately  for  very 
many  years,  had  a  great  affection  and  quite  as  much 
admiration  for  the  man;  and,  like  Mr.  Hallam  and 
other  friends  of  his  lordship,  he  hoped  and  seemed 
to  believe  that   Lord   Ward's  intirmity  would   stop 


I40  LORD  DUDLEY  [chap,  xiv 

short  at  excessive  eccentricity,  and  that  he  might 
live  to  exercise  his  Hberahty  and  munificence  to  the 
fulness  of  years.  "  His  mother,"  Rose  would  say, 
"  has  always  been  far  more  eccentric  than  he,  yet 
she  has  reached  a  good  old  age,  and  still  paints  her 
cheeks,  goes  into  society,  and  drives  about  the  world 
in  a  coach  and  four.  There  is  great  generosity  of 
heart,  as  well  as  cleverness  of  head,  about  Ward. 
He  seemed  destined  to  be  a  first-rate  \\Titer,  and  a 
first-rate  statesman.  George  Canning  always  spoke 
of  him  as  one  of  the  cleverest  men  of  the  day.  You 
remember  he  was  Foreign  Secretary  under  the  Can- 
ning administration,  and  so  continued  under  Lord 
Goderich.  If,  to  make  a  good  Foreign  Secretary,  a 
profound  acquaintance  with  the  Law  of  Nations,  a 
statesmanlike  view  and  grasp  of  political  affairs, 
a  wonderful  ability  in  drawing  up  State  papers,  and 
a  thorough  sincerity  and  honesty  of  purpose  would 
have  been  enough,  then  Ward  would  have  been  the 
very  best  Minister  w^ho  ever  presided  in  Downing 
Street ;  but,  poor  fellow,  he  early  betrayed  an  infirmity 
that  could  not  fail  of  being  fatal  to  a  Minister  and 
diplomatist :  he  thought  aloud,  and  would  involun- 
tarily give  vent  to  what  was  passing  in  his  mind, 
no  matter  where  the  place  or  what  the  audience. 
At  times,  these  loud  uttered  thoughts  were  delivered 
without  the  least  regard  to  les  bienseances,  not  merely 
of  diplomacy,  but  of  general  society.  To  me  the 
effect  was  ludicrous,  but  to  graver  men  it  was  often 
awful."  Rose  gave  no  illustrations  of  this;  but  he 
afterwards  told  me  the  following  anecdote :  When 
the  Goderich  Administration  was  dissolving  in  its 
own  intrinsic  weakness,  but  before  the  fact  was 
apparent  to  the  enlightened  public,  or  known  to  the 
Foreign  Legations  in  London,  his  lordship,  as  Minister, 
gave  a  grand  diplomatic  dinner,  at  his  most  elegant 
house  in  Park  Lane.  He  did  the  honours  admirably, 
he  enlivened  the  conversation  with  flashes  of  wAt  and 
keen  observation,  but  towards  the  close  of  the  repast 


CHAP.  XIV]      FITS  OF  ABSTRACTION  141 

he  fell  into  one  of  his  fits  of  abstraction;  and  then, 
at  the  head  of  his  table,  with  the  Ambassadors  of 
Austria,  France,  Russia,  and  the  Plenipos,  Ministers, 
and  Envoys  of  all  the  world  sitting  at  the  board,  he 
thus  spoke  aloud  what  was  passing  through  his  mind : 

"  I   will  resign.     I   know   I   must.     By  G d  1  we 

must  all  go  out  !  It  is  all  up  with  Goody  I  Not  a 
move  to  make,  not  a  leg  to  stand  upon  !"  The  Corps 
Diplomatique  stared  at  one  another,  with  all  their 
eyes,  in  mute  astonishment. 

One  night  at  Brighton,  when  his  lordship  was  no 
longer  in  office,  he  gave  a  dinner-party,  and  was 
collected  and  exceedingly'  pleasant  till  the  dessert, 
when  a  servant  brought  in  a  note,  and  delivered  it 
to  the  Count  de  C,  a  Frenchman,  who  was  of  the 
party.  Without  thinking  of,  or  perhaps  without 
knowing,  the  English  formula,  "  Will  you  permit 
me?"  the  Count  opened  the  letter  and  began  to 
read  it.  Upon  this  the  host  rose,  snatched  the  paper 
from  his  hand,  and  put  it  in  the  fire.  His  guests, 
mostly  English,  were  "  struck  of  a  heap,"  conster- 
nated, and  the  more  so  as  the  Count  was  a  fire-eating, 
duelling  fellow,  and  was  now  in  a  towering  passion. 
Ward's  friends  intervened,  but  in  order  to  restore 
peace  they  were  obliged  to  make  the  painful  confession 
that  his  lordship  was  liable  to  temporary  aberrations 
of  the  intellect.  Not  long  after  this  incident,  as  Rose 
and  I  were  going  slowly  up  the  London  Road,  towards 
Preston,  his  lordship  overtook  us,  flanked  Rose,  and 
fell  into  pleasant  talk.  Rose  was  not  riding  W'lluti, 
as  it  was  evening,  not  morning,  and  we  were  going 
to  dine  at  old  General  Calcraft's;  but  had  he  been 
on  his  donkey,  it  would  have  been  all  the  same  to 
Dudley  and  Ward.  We  had  a  very,  very  short  way 
to  go,  but  before  we  achieved  the  distance,  a  carriage 
drawn  by  four  posters,  and  having  within  it  a  lady 
and  gentleman,  rapidly  met  and  passed  us.  "  So  1" 
said  Lord  Ward,  thinking  to  himself,  "  here  comes 
Lady  Holland  and  her  atheist !"     "  Is  it  indeed  Lady 

1 1 


142  LORD  DUDLEY  [chap,  xiv 

Holland  ?"  said  Rose.  "  Yes,  her  ladyship  and  Mr. 
Allen,"  replied  Lord  Ward.  ''  I  have  heard  of  a 
great  lady  never  travelling  without  her  chaplain — 
but  an  atheist  I"  said  Rose.  "  Atheist  ?"  said  his 
lordship,  "did  I  say  atheist?  Well,  the  thought 
rushed  through  my  mind,  and  perhaps  I  was  not  so 
far  wrong,  for,  if  Allen  is  not  an  atheist,  he  is  a 
philosopher  of  the  Edinburgh  school  of  the  fag-end 
of  the  last  century;  and  that  comes  pretty  much  to 
the  same  thing."  I  would  not  speak  of  hatred  or 
malice,  of  which  I  believe  poor  Lord  Ward  to  have 
been  incapable,  but  to  Lady  Holland  and  to  Allen, 
Lord  H.'s  Magliabecchi,  provider,  and  crammer,  his 
aversion  and  dislike  were  intense,  and  he  never 
took  any  care  to  suppress  or  conceal  his  feelings. 
Old  Sir  Samuel  Shepherd  and  his  niece,  Miss  Running- 
ton,  were  at  a  picnic,  in  Mr.  Lock's  park  in  the 
Harrow  Road,  and  with  many  others  were  talking 
and  laughing  with  Lord  Ward,  who  was  in  the  highest 
spirits  and  overflowing  with  wit  and  humour;  but, 
on  a  sudden,  he  darted  from  them,  jumped  over  a 
hedge,  and  disappeared.  What  was  it  ?  Nothing 
but  Lady  Holland  approaching  the  spot  where  he 
had  been,  leaning  on  the  arm  of  Mr.  Allen. 

He  had  not  much  more  affection  for  old  Sam 
Rogers  than  for  her  ladyship  or  Mr.  Allen ;  he  disliked 
him  as  a  retainer  and  component  part  of  Holland 
House,  and  for  various  other  not  very  amiable 
peculiarities. 

The  banker-poet  knew  this,  and  hence  this  spiteful 
and  untrue  distich : 

*'  They  say  Ward  has  no  heart,  but  I  deny  it; 
He  has  a  heart,  and  gets  his  speeches  by  it." 

Old  Sam  carried  a  dirk,  and  on  occasion  never  failed 
to  use  it.  As  for  heart,  I  do  not  believe  he  ever  had 
the  tithe  of  Lord  Ward's. 

Although  Hallam  was  an  habitue  of  Holland 
House,  his  lordship  had  both  esteem  and  affection 


»! 


CHAP,  xiv]  GABRIELE  ROSSETTI  143 

for  him,  and  wlieii  his  unhappy  mahidy  increased, 
when  he  was  put  under  restraint,  Hallani  was  one  of 
the  very  few  friends  he  would  admit  in  his  lurid 
intervals. 

Next  to  Rose,  this  accomplished  nobleman  was,  I 
think,  about  the  best  of  our  Italian  scholars;  he  was 
deep  in  Dante,  and  spoke  the  bella  lingua  almost  to 
perfection. 

I  remember  how  indii^nant  he  was  at  an  insane 
attempt  made  by  that  Neapolitan  improvvisatore  and 
fugitive  carbonaro,  G.  Rossetti,  to  turn  the  sublime 
language,  imagery,  and  allusions  of  the  "  Divina 
Commedia  "  into  the  shibboleth,  slang,  or  gergo,  of 
secret,  conspiring,  political  societies  of  the  Middle 
Ages. 

Lord  Dudley  and  Ward  had  written  one  or  two 
clever  articles  for  the  Quarterly  Review.  They  were 
admirable,  and  attracted  the  more  notice  as  being 
known  to  come  from  him ;  but  John  Murray,  the 
proprietor,  and  old  Giflford,  the  editor  of  the  Review, 
had  great  difficulty  in  getting  anything  more  out  of 
him. 

"  My  lord,"  said  King  John,  "  if  you  had  only  been 
born  a  poor  man,  and  were  now  forced  to  write  for 
your  living,  like  Southey,  what  a  first-rate  reviewer 
you  would  have  made  1" 

"  Thank  you,  Murray,"  said  his  lordship,  "  but  1 
think,  on  the  whole,  I  would  rather  have  the  coal- 
pits and  the  peerage,  than  be  that  f" 

Fastidious  he  was,  in  many  things;  but  I  fancy 
that  what  this  extraordinary  man  most  abhorred 
was  affectation,  whether  in  woman  or  in  man,  and 
that  his  passion  for  the  hrst  Lady  Lyndhurst  in  good 
part  arose  out  of  her  total  want  of  that  rather  common 
quality.  Old  Sam  Rogers,  who  returned,  with 
interest,  his  lordship's  antipathy  and  dislike,  used  to 
say  that  Ward  himself  was  a  "  concrete  of  affecta- 
tion." 

Not  so;  it  was  not  affectation,  but  a  most  acute 


144  LORD  DOVER  [chap,  xiv 

taste,  and  an  innate,  irrepressible  oddity,  strengthened 
no  doubt  by  his  malady ;  it  was  all  natural  to  him ; 
it  was,  in  fact,  his  nature  itself. 


LORD  DOVER 

In  the  winter  of  1832-33,  a  few  months  before  his 
premature  and  lamented  death,  his  lordship  was 
staying  at  Brighton  in  very  bad,  and  visibly  very 
bad,  health.  His  house  was  flanked  on  either  side 
by  a  rich,  pompous,  party-giving  citizen  and  citizeness. 
Those  new  Brighton  houses  w^ere  neither  so  comfort- 
able nor  so  substantial  as  they  looked  outside;  the 
partition  walls  between  them  were  thin  and  porous 
to  sound.  One  night,  when  he  was  very  ill,  his  right- 
hand  neighbour  gave  a  grand  soiree  wdth  a  concert. 
There  was  no  escaping  the  noise,  and  poor  Lord  Dover 
suffered  from  it.  On  calling  upon  him  next  morning, 
he  said  in  his  quiet  manner:  "  I  have  had  a  bad 
night  of  it  !  I  really  believe  that  our  next-door 
neighbour  would  give  a  ball  and  dance  at  his  house, 
even  if  he  knew  I  were  in  the  very  act  of  dying." 
A  few  nights  after  this,  when  his  lordship  was  still 
worse,  and  when  that  neighbour  knew  it,  the  man  on 
his  left  did  give  a  ball,  a  crowded  and  very  noisy 
one,  for  it  was  full  season  at  Brighton,  and  a  Cavalry 
Regiment  w^as  in  barracks,  and  all  the  officers 
who  attended  the  ball  w^altzed  and  mazurkaed  with 
their  spurs  on.  I  say  that  this  christianly  neighbour 
knew  his  lordship's  condition:  he  had  been  politely 
warned,  though  not  by  Lady  Dover,  or  b}^  any  of  the 
family.  His  answer  was  that  '*  cards  "  had  been 
issued,  and  that  invitations  could  not  be  recalled. 
But  who  has  lived  in  London,  or  in  any  "  fashionable" 
or  "  respectable  "  quarter  of  it,  without  being  made 
painfully  sensible  of  the  utter  indifference  of  next- 
door  neighbours  ?  of  the  total  disregard  of  No.  4  to 
the  misery,  agony,  or  death  that  may  be  passing  at 


I 


CHAP,  xiv]  NATIONAL  FAULTS  145 

No.  3  on  the  one  side,  or  at  No.  5  on  the  other  ? 
The  lower  grades  of  society  are  higher  in  this  regard : 
a  poor  tradesman  will  not  have  song  and  supper, 
romp  and  clatter,  if  he  knows  that  there  is  death  or 
dangerous  sickness  in  the  next  house;  and  I  think  I 
have  observed  that  the  very  poor,  the  hard-working 
classes,  are  thoughtful  and  delicate  in  such  occur- 
rences. I  take  it  that  the  heartlessness  of  English 
society — if  we  have  anything  left  that  can  be  really 
called  society — increases  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
increase  of  pretension  and  love  of  display,  and  that  it 
is  in  part  owing  to  the  insane  desire  of  doing  in 
brick-built  street  or  terrace  houses  that  which  can 
be  done  properly  only  in  palaces  or  detached  stone 
mansions.  If,  as  a  nation,  we  have  much  to  be  proud 
of,  verily  we  have  much  of  which  to  be  ashamed  1 
Our  pretension,  our  egotism,  our  common  lack  of 
ease  and  amiability,  will  not  reconnnend  us  in  the 
eyes  of  posterity,  even  though  that  posterity  should 
be  worse  than  ourselves — a  case,  to  all  appearance, 
ver\^  likelv  to  occur. 


■%^ 


CHAPTER  XV 

SIR  THOMAS  LAWRENCE 

'  Of  all  the  Messieurs  we  had  at  Vienna  during  the 
Congress  and  a  year  or  two  after  it,  whether  English, 
French,  or  of  any  other  nation,  I  shall  always  think 
that,  next  to  Lord  Castlereagh,  the  most  graceful, 
elegant,  polished  gentleman  was  your  painter,  the 
Chevalier  Lawrence." 

So  said  the  Princess  Rosamoffski,  Austrian  by 
ancient  descent  and  birth,  and  Russian  only  by 
marriage.  The  unmarried  sister  of  the  Princess,  a 
Chanoinesse  of  Brunn,  an  accomplished,  very  tasteful 
person,  echoed  the  opinion;  which  I  also  heard  re- 
peated by  the  Princess  Jablonovski,  the  Countess 
Clery,  and  by  other  ladies  who  were  of  la  crime  de  la 
crime  of  Viennese  society.  At  Florence,  Rome, 
Naples,  and  wherever  he  went  in  Italy,  Sir  Thomas 
made  an  equally  favourable  impression. 

I  had  known  him  in  London  in  1 813-14,  and  had 
been  wonderfully  struck  with  what  appeared  to  me 
to  be  the  perfection  of  his  manners.  I  believe  he 
owed  a  good  deal  of  the  ease  and  natural  elegance 
of  his  deportment  and  carriage  to  a  taste  he  had 
cherished  for  athletic  and  other  exercises;  he  was 
very  clever  with  both  broad-sword  and  small-sword, 
he  could  beat  most  men  at  single-stick,  he  was  a 
first-rate  hand  with  the  boxing-gloves,  few  could 
compete  with  him  at  billiards,  and  he  had  dearly 
loved  dancing.  I  saw  him  in  Italy  in  181 8,  but  only 
en  passant  and  when  he  was  in  a  great  hurry  to  get 
back   to   his   London  practice.     I   did   not  see  him 


CHAP.  XV]       HIS  MAXIMS  OF  LIFE  147 

again  till  the  winter  of  1829,  when  I  met  him  at 
Mrs.  Heber's,  at  John  Murray's,  and  at  one  or  two 
other  houses.  In  my  eye,  he  had  grown  very  hke 
Mr.  Canning,  and  had  a  head  quite  as  fine  as  that 
statesman's.  His  society  was  dehghtful — so  calm,  so 
easy,  lively,  and  unaffected.  He  said  and  did  every- 
thing with  a  grace.  He  took  pains  to  do  this,  but 
the  pains  were  not  apparent. 

He  had  for  maxims,  that  what  was  worth  doing 
at  all  was  worth  doing  well ;  that  nothing  ought  to 
be  done  by  halves;  that  if  he  were  a  housemaid,  he 
would  take  a  pride  in  doing  the  work  thoroughly. 
Even  in  writing  a  note  to  accept  an  invitation  to 
dinner  or  to  decline  one,  or  on  any  other  familiar  or 
trivial  subject,  he  took  pains  with  it,  always  gave  it 
some  elegant  turn,  and  folded  it  and  sealed  it  with 
all  possible  neatness  and  elegance.  And  this  he  did 
with  all  persons.  I  saw  a  letter  he  had  written  to 
his  tailor.  But  for  the  subject-matter,  it  might  have 
been  written  to  a  duchess.  Considering  that  his 
early  education  had  been  quite  neglected,  that  he 
began  to  earn  his  livelihood  by  his  pencil  and  crayons 
at  the  age  of  fourteen,  that  he  had  been  so  incessantly 
occupied  with  his  portraits  ever  since,  as  to  have  had 
little  time  for  reading  or  study,  his  range  of  informa- 
tion, his  general  knowledge  and  taste  in  literature, 
were  quite  extraordinary.  Even  in  the  company  of 
professed  scholars  and  literati  he  could  maintain  his 
share  of  the  conversation,  and  could  always  say 
something  agreeable  or  otherwise  worthy  of  attention. 

One  night  after  dinner  John  Murray  expressed  his 
astonishment  at  the  painter's  acquirements,  and  told 
him  to  his  face  that  he  wondered  how  he  had  ever 
come  by  them.  Sir  Thomas  replied  with  a  smile: 
"  Mr.  Murray,  I  have  always  been  a  good  listener. 
My  profession  for  many  years  has  brought  me  in 
close  contact  with  clever,  accomplished  people,  and 
I  have  always  kept  my  ear  open,  and  have  after- 
wards treasured  up  what  I  heard."     There  is  a  good 


148  SIR  THOMAS  LAWRENCE     [chap,  xv 

lesson  conveyed  in  these  few  words.  A  good  listener 
is  even  a  rarer  thing  than  a  good  talker.  Most 
people  so  much  hke  to  shine  and  talk  themselves, 
that  they  do  not  hsten  at  all.  Yet  let  an}^  young 
man  of  fair  average  intellect  be  thrown  very  much 
among  accomplished  persons,  and  let  him  only  listen, 
and  afterwards  think,  as  Lawrence  did,  and  in  a 
few  years  he  will  have  improved  his  taste  and 
have  picked  up  a  good  stock  of  information.  One  of 
the  best-informed  men  I  ever  knew  was  a  foreign 
nobleman,  who  owing  to  bad  health  and  weakness 
of  sight  had  at  no  time  of  his  life  been  able  to  be 
much  of  a  reader ;  but  he  was  constantly  surrounded 
by  hard-reading,  reflecting,  accomplished  persons ; 
and,  like  Sir  Thomas,  he  had  alwa^^s  been  a  good 
listener. 

I  was  shocked  and  grieved  at  the  painter's  sudden 
death.  I  had  met  him  only  a  few  days  before,  and 
was  to  have  dined  with  him  at  Murray's  the  very 
day  on  which  he  died.  The  poverty  and  difficulties 
under  which  his  life  began  have  been  under-rated 
rather  than  over-rated.  Genteel  biographies  have 
made  his  father  an  innkeeper,  or  an  hotel-keeper ;  but, 
in  truth,  he  was  neither.  He  was  a  publican,  and 
kept  a  common  public-house.  Even  w^hen  young 
Lawrence  was  making  some  way  in  the  world,  he 
was  kept  so  poor  by  the  pulls  made  upon  him  by 
his  famity,  that  he  had  seldom  money  to  buy  clothes, 
a  case  all  the  harder  as  he  was  always  fond  of  being 
well-dressed. 

I  knew  an  old  West  of  England  lady,  aunt  of  the 
present  General  Salter  of  the  Bombay  Army,  who 
presented  the  limner  with  his  first  pair  of  black  satin 
breeches,  to  enable  him  to  go  comme  il  faiit  to  some 
ball  or  assembly  at  Bath.  With  his  long  foreknow- 
ledge of  the  evils  of  poverty,  it  is  astonishing  that 
he  should  not  have  taken  more  care  of  his  money. 
After  making  a  very  large  annual  income  for  the 
space  of  a  quarter  of  a  century,  at  the  least,  he  left 


CHAP.  XV]      DUCHESS  OF  ST.  ALBANS  149 

little  behind  him  but  debts.  I  never  heard  this 
accounted  for.  Though  he  Uved  as  a  gentleman,  he 
certainly  did  not  live  extravagantly;  I  believe  it 
was  never  heard  that  he  gambled,  or  betted,  or 
indulged  in  any  very  expensive  habits  or  tastes.  He 
bought  old  prints  and  old  drawings,  it  is  true;  but 
his  yearly  outlay  on  these  things  did  not,  in  proportion 
to  his  income,  amount  to  any  great  matter.  That 
he  was  in  straitened  circumstances  was  well  known 
a  good  many  years  before  he  died.  Old  Northcote 
used  to  say:  "  Lawrence  began  his  London  life  in 
debt  and  by  borrowing  from  the  Jews,  and  when 
once  a  man  makes  such  a  beginning  he  never  makes 
an  end  of  it,  or  gets  over  it,  let  his  income  be  w'hat 
it  may."  There  may  be  a  great  deal  in  this.  Old 
Jimm}^  was  a  shrewd,  cunning  fellow. 

Sir  Thomas,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  neither 
wife  nor  family.  I  believe  he  occasionally  did  some- 
thing for  tw^o  or  three  nieces.  With  one  of  these,  a 
very  pretty  and  coquettish  little  woman,  I  was 
slightly  acquainted,  a  short  time  after  her  marriage. 
He  had  promised  her  husband  a  portion  with  her, 
but  he  was  slow  in  paying  it,  and  when  he  paid  an 
instalment  he  had  to  borrow  the  money  for  the  pur- 
pose. There  was,  I  believe,  some  falsehood  or  exag- 
geration in  a  stor}'  current  in  London  society  a  year 
or  two  before  his  death.  A  bond  which  he  had  given 
for  ;^4,ooo  came  into  the  hands  of  Messrs.  Coutts 
and  Co.,  the  bankers,  who  demanded  immediate 
payment,  according  to  the  purport  of  the  deed.  The 
chief  partner  and  main  proprietor  of  that  bank  was 
no  less  a  personage  than  the  Duchess  of  St.  Albans, 
who  had  been  previously  Mrs.  Coutts,  and  originally 
Harriette  Mellon  of  Galashiels.  According  to  the  re- 
ceived London  tale,  Lawrence  hastened  to  her,  threw 
himself  on  his  knees  at  her  feet,  and  implored  Her 
Grace  to  grant  time  and  to  hold  the  bond.  Here- 
upon the  Duchess  called  for  it,  put  it  into  the  painter's 
hand,  and  told  him  to  put  it  into  the  fire,  and  to 


ISO  WILLIAM  BROCKEDON        [chap,  xv 

think  no  more  about  it.  Now,  I  cannot  believe  the 
kneeHng  part  of  the  story,  nor  can  I  fancy  that  with 
such  a  winning  gracefulness  on  one  side,  and  so  much 
occasional  munificence  on  the  other,  the  genuflection 
and  abasement  could  have  been  at  all  necessary. 
What  I  can  readily  credit  is,  that  to  a  man  like  Sir 
Thomas  Lawrence,  the  Duchess  v*^as  quite  capable 
of  giving  a  sum  even  larger  than  ;£4,ooo. 


WILLIAM  BROCKEDON,  ARTIST  AND  LECTURER 

Poor  Brock  is  gone,  and  I  am  sorry  for  it.  I  had 
known  him  exactly  a  quarter  of  a  century.  He 
always  appeared  to  be  a  strong,  tough,  hale  man, 
likely  to  reach  the  age  of  fourscore.  Of  late  years 
I  had  not  seen  very  much  of  him,  but  at  one  time 
we  used  to  meet  rather  frequently  at  John  Murray's, 
Charles  Turner's,  Blewitt's,  and  elsewhere.  The  last 
time  we  met  was  in  the  summer  of  1852,  on  board 
a  steamer  going  from  Folkestone  to  Boulogne,  when 
I  found  my  somewhat  corpulent  and  grey-headed 
friend,  equipped  with  a  green  wide-aw^ake,  and  attired 
in  very  wide  trousers,  grey  gaiters,  and  a  drab- 
coloured  blouse — a  costume  in  which,  it  appears, 
our  English  tourists  now  like  to  exhibit  themselves 
to  the  gaze  of  Continentals. 

Being  very  much  of  a  Liberal,  he  was  wishing  for 
another  Revolution,  or  for  more  barricades  to  upset 
Louis  Napoleon.  But,  among  the  many  subjects 
which  my  friend  would  discuss  with  great  vehemence 
and  fluency,  without  understanding  anything  about 
them,  politics  stood  conspicuous.  But  Brockedon 
had  a  great  deal  of  merit  and  much  varied  talent. 
He  was  born  and  bred  in  the  genial  county  of  Devon, 
which  has  given  birth  to  so  many  of  our  artists,  and 
was  brought  up  there  to  the  very  humble  calling  of 
a  watchmaker,  or  rather  watchmender.  But  he 
early  displayed  some  ability  in  drawing  and  etching. 


i 


CHAP.  XV]       ALBUM  OF  PORTRAITS  151 

and  he  cultivated  this  talent,  came  up  to  London, 
and  became  an  artist  by  profession.  He  began  as 
an  etcher  and  engraver,  and  did  a  quantity  of  credit- 
able work  in  this  line.  He  was  more  fortunate  than 
the  great  majority  of  these  ingenious  adventurers; 
a  marriage  with  a  worthy  person  who  had  a  moderate 
fortune  set  him  quite  at  ease  as  to  worldly  circum- 
stances. He  now  quitted  the  etching-needle  and  the 
burin  for  pencil,  brush,  and  palette.  I  cannot 
conscientiously  say  that  he  very  much  distinguished 
himself  as  a  painter,  but  he  certainly  gained  dis- 
tinction as  a  sketcher  of  scenery. 

See  his  "  Passes  of  the  Alps,"  his  views  in  Italy,  and 
other  works.  He  travelled  considerably,  and  at  the 
same  time  he  addicted  himself  to  physics  or  natural 
philosophy.  He  lost  his  wife,  to  his  very  great 
grief,  but  her  property  and  a  dear  son  remained, 
and  on  him  he  seemed  to  raise  all  his  hopes  for  the 
future,  all  his  bright  visions.  By  degrees  he  had 
become  acquainted  with  most  of  the  celebrities  of 
the  day.  He  had  a  very  handsome  sort  of  album, 
in  which  he  had  cleverly  drawn,  in  pencil  or  chalk, 
the  portraits  of  all  his  friends  or  acquaintances — 
politicians,  poets,  painters,  sculptors,  and  engravers. 
He  did  me  the  honour  of  including  my  eftigies,  and 
at  a  period  when  I  was  little  known  in  England,  in 
1 83 1.  "I  shall  make  no  use  of  these  things  while 
I  live,"  said  he,  "  but  it  will  be  interesting  hereafter. 
I  intend  it  as  an  heirloom  to  my  boy,  and  if  he 
turn  out  a  man  of  taste  and  feeling  he  will  prize  it, 
and  if  he  choose  he  may  have  the  sketches  engraved 
and  published."  Poor  Brock  I  Another  striking 
specimen  of  the  "  vanity  of  human  wishes."  The 
child  lived  on  to  youth,  and  then  followed  his  mother 
to  the  grave,  leaving  his  father  fur  many  years  if 
not  a  solitary  man — for  that  Brock  never  could  be — 
yet  a  man  without  Lares  or  Penates,  with  a  lonely 
home-hearth.  He  betook  himself  more  than  ever  to 
natural  and  experimental  philosophy,  and  not  con- 


152  WILLIAM  BROCKEDON       [chap,  xv 

tent  with  dissertations  at  dinner  parties  and  soirees, 
he  took  to  pubHc  lecturing  in  the  Royal  Institution  and 
other  much-frequented  places,  too  heedless  of  the  fact 
that  his  knowledge  of  the  subjects  discussed  was  im- 
perfect. On  one  or  two  subjects,  such  as  the  history  of 
engraving,  he  had  information  to  give,  and  was  worth 
listening  to;  but,  on  demand,  or  on  his  own  offer, 
he  would  take  up  almost  any  subject  or  topic.  I 
never  knew  but  one  other  man  who  was  so  bold  and 
impromptu  a  lecturer;  this  was  Captain  Maconochie, 
of  "  Prison  Disciphne  "  and  ''  Norfolk  Island  " 
celebrity.  When  through  indisposition  or  other 
accident  a  lecturer  failed  in  his  appointment,  people 
present  would  say,  "  Where's  Captain  Maconochie  ?" 
And  the  Captain  would  jump  up  and  lecture  away 
the  whole  of  the  time  stipulated — about  anything, 
or  about  next  to  nothing  at  all. 

When  wife  and  son  were  both  gone,  poor  Brocke- 
don  became  invaded  with  the  spirit  of  money-making, 
and  of  commercial  speculation.  I  know  not  how 
many  schemes  and  joint  -  stock  companies  he  took 
up  or  joined;  but  I  remember  that  the  whole  aspect 
of  his  home — a  very  nice  old-fashioned  house  in 
Queen  Anne's  Square — was  entirely  changed;  for 
instead  of  meeting  with  artists,  men  of  letters,  and 
musicians  there,  one  met  miners,  brokers,  projectors, 
managers  of  companies,  and  other  men  who  had 
"  shares,"  "  premiums,"  and  "  cent,  per  cent.," 
scarified  on  their  countenances. 

I  think  it  must  have  been  about  the  year  1836 
that  Brocky  became  excessively  long-winded  on  the 
subject  of  stopping  bottles.  Meet  him  where  you 
would,  you  were  sure  to  hear  a  denunciation  of 
corks.  "  Cork,"  said  he,  *'  is  an  antiquated  bar- 
barism, a  vile  solecism,  a  monstrous  imposition  on 
an  ignorant,  unthinking  public  !  Cork  never  properly 
preserves  your  wine,  but  it  often  gives  it  a  bad 
flavour,  and  so  spoils  it.  For  stopping  your  bottles 
and    decanters    there    is    nothing    like    caoutchouc. 


CHAP,  xv]        INDIA-RUBBER  CORKS  153 

commonly    called    india-rubber.      I    have   joined    in 
a  patent,  and  am  aiding  in  the  manufacture  of  such 
corks.     Take  my  advice,  and  furnish  yourself  immedi- 
ately with  india-rubber  corks.      You  will  find  them 
a  great  comfort  and   a  great   saving.     Hand   me  a 
claret  bottle  and  that  decanter,  and  I  will  show  you 
how    they    act."     And    here    he    would    produce    a 
pocketful  of  his  patented  stoppers,  experimentalize 
with  them,  and  harangue  about  them  as  long  as  he 
could  find  a  single  listener.     *'  Hang  that  fellow  !" 
said   Matthew   Hill  one  evening.     "  I   wish   I   could 
cork  him  !     I  wish  I  could  stop  him  hermetically  !" 
Whatever  he    might   be   going   to   say  —  however 
trivial    or    trite — Brockedon    always    preluded    by 
assuming  either  a  very  arch  and  knowing,  or  a  very 
solemn   look,  in  which   he  was  aided  by  thick  and 
projecting   eyebrows    and    by   other   peculiarities   of 
physiognomy.     Miss  Knight,  now  Mrs.  George  Clowes, 
who  had  a  good  deal  of  her  father's  wit,  with  a  great 
deal  more  humour  than  her  father  ever  possessed, 
said:  "  For  a  long  time,  and  until  I  knew  him  better, 
I  was  always  expecting  that  Brockedon  was  going  to 
say  something  very  witty  or  uncommonly  wise;  he 
is  a  disappointing  man;  I  have  heard  nothing  from 
him  but  commonplace."     One  might,  indeed,  have 
repeated  of    Brocky   what   Dr.    Johnson    said   of   a 
certain  player:  "  His  conversation  usually  threatened 
and  announced  more  than  it  performed ;  he  fed  you 
with  a  continual   renovation  of  hope,  to   end   in    a 
constant  succession  of  disappointment." 

William  Brockedon  was  a  friendly,  rather  warm- 
hearted, and  "  serviceable  "  man.  He  must  have 
made  very  considerable  sums  by  some  of  his  publica- 
tions, for  he  was  always  rather  a  keen  man  of  busi- 
ness, and  the  property  his  wife  brought  him  put  him 
above  subjection  to  the  whims  or  the  rapacious 
tyranny  of  the  booksellers  and  publishers,  and  of 
the  vendors  of  engravings.  He  had  an  affection 
for  the  memory  of  that  oddest  of  odd  artists,  his 


154  WILLIAM  BROCKEDON       [chap.xv 

county-man,  old  Northcote.  Sometime  after  that 
painter's  death,  he  brought  out  an  edition  of  his 
Fables,  with  a  short  Memoir  prefixed,  and  with 
many  choice  woodcuts — a  book  well  worth  possessing  . 
I  know  not  of  what  he  died,  in  1854,  at  the  age  of 
sixty-six,  but  he  is  dead.  Cost  va  !  Vuno  dopo  Valtro  / 
Our  friends  fall  fast;  with  those  who  remain  we 
must  close  up  the  ranks,  and  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder. 

I  knew  James  Northcote,  R.A.,  a  Devonshire  man 
and  confirmed  old  bachelor,  in  18 14,  when  he  was 
living  like  a  solitary  old  spider  in  a  cob-webbed 
house  in  Argyle  Street.  Brockedon,  who  attempted 
to  write  his  life,  had  many  curious  tales  about  him. 
Northcote  had  a  cordial  hatred  for  his  county-man, 
poor  Haydon,  who,  on  his  side,  hated  all  the  members 
of  the  Royal  Academy,  quoad  Academicians,  and  who 
contrived  to  quarrel  with  nearly  every  man  he  met 
half  a  dozen  times. 

"  Isn't  this  beautiful  !"  said  old  Jemmy,  showing 
Brockedon  The  Times  newspaper.  "  Isn't  this  charm- 
ing !  Here's  the  King  has  been  sending  for  Haydon 
to  go  down  to  Windsor  Castle,  and  to  take  the  daub 
of  a  picture,  called  *  The  Mock  Election  '  with  him  ! 
I  wish  to  Christ  the  King  had  knighted  him  I  I  only 
wish  he  had  knighted  him  !  It  would  have  shown 
how  Art  is  appreciated  by  Royalty  1" 


I 


CHAPTER     XVI 

SIR  ROBERT  PEEL 

It  has  been  said  by  a  late  writer  that  this  was  one 
of  the  most  susceptible  of  men.  "Sir  Robert  Peel 
was  extremely  susceptible,  and  like  most  persons  of 
that  constitution,  he  concealed  the  warmth,  and 
even  irritability,  of  his  feelings  under  a  cold  and  re- 
served exterior.  But  those  who  knew  him  best 
understood  how  easily  he  could  be  moved,  and 
observed  that  tears  would  start  to  his  eyes  when  his 
sympathies  were  strongly  excited."  This  is  fully 
confirmed  by  his  friend  Lord  Hardinge.  "  Peel  had 
the  sensibility  of  a  woman,"  says  Lord  Hardinge, 
"  and  he  was  obliged  to  be  on  his  guard  when  in 
public  or  even  when  in  society.  It  was  nothing 
but  this  which  made  him  appear  stiff  and  formal 
to  those  who  did  not  know  him  intimately." 

The  world  will  long  remember  his  kindness  and 
delicacy  towards  the  dying  Thomas  Hood  and  his 
family;  nor  will  it  soon  forget  that,  on  repeated 
occasions,  he  was  bountiful  to  Haydon,  the  painter, 
and  that  only  a  day  or  so  before  that  unhappy  man 
committed  suicide,  he  applied  to  Sir  Robert  for  £50, 
and  got  it.  When  Sir  Robert  heard  of  Haydon 's 
catastrophe,  he  exclaimed,  with  streaming  eyes: 
**  Thank  God,  I  sent  that  cheque  I  Thank  God, 
I  sent  it  immediately  1  If  Haydon  had  not  received 
it,  I  should  have  felt  as  if  haunted  by  his  ghost.'* 

Sir  Robert  was  fond  of  dumb  animals,  and  was 
especially  fond  of  his  friend  Lord  Hardinge 's  pet, 
the  little  white  dog,  with  which  he  would  play  for 

155 


156  SIR  ROBERT  PEEL         [chap,  xvi 

ten  minutes  at  a  time.  Not  long  after  his  accident 
and  death,  Lord  Hardinge  said  to  me :  "  The  last  time 
Sir  Robert  was  here  (South  Park)  I  one  morning 
left  him  alone  in  the  drawing-room  with  my  favourite 
for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  When  I  returned 
to  him  I  found  him  playing  with  the  dog,  which  he 
had  put  up  on  that  marble  mantelpiece,  there — ^just 
by  that  enamel  portrait  of  the  Duke.  He  turned  his 
head,  and  said:  'Hardinge,  I  do  hke  this  little 
fellow;  he  can't  solicit,  he  can't  ask  for  place  or 
patronage,  he  can't  din  me  with  politics,  he  can't  be 
ungrateful  !  See  how  faithful  and  fond  he  is  to  3^ou  ! 
Now  that  you  are  come  back,  he  won't  sta}'  with 
me  !'  He  put  down  the  dog,  who  came  leaping  into 
my  lap.  Sir  Robert  mused  and  looked  melancholy  for  a 
minute  or  two,  and  then  said  :  '  But  it  is  an  old  regret 
that  men  should  have  less  gratitude  than  dogs.'  " 


SPENCER  PERCEVAL 

Some  scoffer  said  of  this  statesman,  that  he  had 
missed  his  vocation ;  that  in  him  a  first-rate 
Methodist  parson  had  been  spoiled  b}^  being  turned 
into  a  Prime  Minister.  Now  here,  as  is  usual  with 
such  sa3dngs,  there  is  more  wit  and  point  than  truth. 
Mr.  Perceval  had  nothing  of  the  Methodist,  nothing 
of  the  sectarian  about  him;  he  was  a  faithful,  con- 
scientious, devout  member  of  our  Church,  regular 
in  his  attendance  on  its  services,  and  pious  without 
being  in  any  way  intolerant,  sour,  or  fanatical. 
One  Sunday  morning,  while  he  was  Premier,  he  was 
going  to  church  with  his  wiie  and  children,  at  St. 
Margaret's,  Westminster;  and  as  he  was  almost  at 
the  church  door,  a  nobleman,  with  four  smoking 
post-horses,  drove  up  and  told  him  that  His  Majesty 
wanted  to  see  him  on  important  business,  immediately, 
or  as  soon  as  might  be,  at  Windsor.  "  M}^  lord," 
said   Perceval,  "  I   must  first  perform  my  duty  to 


CHAP,  xvi]  HIS  GOOD  QUALITIES  157 

my  Heavenly  Master;  and  that  done,  I  will  instantly 
attend  on  my  earthly  master."  He  went  calmly  into 
the  church  and  remained  the  whole  time  of  the 
service,  after  which  a  light  travelling  carriage  and  four 
good  horses  swiftly  wafted  him  to  the  King.  This 
anecdote  was  told  me,  only  the  other  day  (August, 
1856)  by  my  very  handsome,  very  amiable,  but 
ver}^  eccentric  friend,  John  Thomas  Perceval,  the 
Minister's  second  son,  who  had  it  from  his  sister's 
governess,  who  went  with  the  family  to  church. 
John  himself  was  of  the  party,  but  he  was  too  young 
to  remember  the  incident.  In  man}-  other  ways. 
Whig  jealousy,  malice,  and  virulence,  did,  and 
occasionally  continue  to  do,  gross  injustice  to  the 
character,  courage,  and  abilities  of  this  Minister. 
If  not  a  statesman  of  the  very  first  order,  the  sort 
I  of  man  that  appears  scarcely  twice  in  a  century,  he 
could  never  be  fairly  ranked  low  down  in  that  order. 
He  had  great  business  talents,  he  was  wonderfully 
steady  to  his  work,  thoroughly  honest  in  his  motives, 
and  firm  and  consistent  in  his  principles.  Even  as 
a  law^-er,  as  a  House  of  Commons  man,  as  an  orator, 
a  debater,  and  as  a  writer  of  State  papers,  he  had  far 
more  ability  than  many  of  those  who  lampooned  him. 
It  is  highly  honourable  to  the  memory  of  the  late 
Sir  Samuel  Romilly  that,  in  despite  of  his  strong 
Whiggery,  he  did  justice  to  the  virtues  and  talents 
of  Perceval,  in  several  of  his  letters  and  diaries,  and 
left  upon  record  what  ought  by  this  time  to  have 
corrected  the  inadequate,  unfair  appreciation  so 
generally  entertained  of  the  unfortunate  Minister, 
who  fell  murdered  while  in  the  act  of  serving  his 
King  and  country.  In  justice  to  Spencer  Perceval 
it  ought  to  be  remembered  that  the  times  of  his 
Premiership  were  times  which  presented  tremendous 
difficulties,  not  the  least  of  them  being  the  transfer 
of  the  Royal  authority  and  prerogative  from  the  poor, 
blind,  mad  old  King,  to  his  son,  the  Regent.  Mr. 
Perceval   manfully  stood   by  our  great   Commander 

12 


158  SPENCER  PERCEVAL       [chap,  xvi 

when  the  WTiigs  were  for  recalling  him,  if  not  for 
bringing  him  before  a  Council  of  War,  to  ruin  and 
disgrace;  Mr.  Perceval  liberally  fed  the  war  in  the 
Peninsula,  and  Mr.  Perceval  conferred  an  inestimable 
benefit  on  the  Army,  by  having  the  moral  courage, 
in  1811,  to  restore  the  Duke  of  York  to  the  Horse 
Guards,  in  spite  of  Whig  and  vulgar  clamour,  and 
the  scandals  brought  forth,  in  1808,  by  Mary  Anne 
Clarke  and  her  cher  ami,  Colonel  Wardle.  Old  Sir 
David  Dundas,  a  mere  martinet  and  a  very  in- 
competent man,  had  succeeded,  during  the  short 
time  he  had  been  Commander-in-Chief,  in  disgusting 
or  in  indisposing  the  whole  Army.  Under  his  sleepy, 
dreary  regimen,  not  a  single  thing  had  been  done 
well  at  the  Horse  Guards,  or  across  the  way  in  the 
War  Office.  The  Duke  of  York  instantly  put  a 
new  life  into  those  departments,  and  into  the  whole 
Service. 

I  have  said  elsew^here,  in  a  work  which  has  long 
been  before  the  world,  and  which  is  now  being 
reproduced,  with  my  name  unfairly  taken  out  of 
the  title-page,  "  the  public  character  of  Perceval 
was  much  underrated,  and  his  private  character 
little  understood.  As  a  Minister,  he  showed  courage 
when  courage  was  most  wanted,  and  when  timidity 
and  hesitation  must  have  brought  on  the  most 
ruinous  and  degrading  consequences.  His  private 
character  seems  to  have  been  not  only  without  a 
blemish,  but  rich  in  some  of  the  high  and  generous 
virtues;  and,  with  qualities  like  these,  his  public 
character  could  not  possibly  be,  as  faction  repre- 
sented it,  unmanly,  vile,  treacherous,  and  every  way 
base.  His  disinterestedness  seemed  to  be  proved 
by  the  poverty  in  which  he  died. 

"  As  a  private  man,"  sa^^s  Romilly,  ''  I  had  a  very 
great  regard  for  Perceval.  We  went  the  same 
circuit  together,  and  for  many  years  I  lived  with  him 
in  a  very  delightful  intimacy.  No  man  could  be 
more  generous,  more  friendly,  or  more  kind  than  he 


CHAP.  XVI]  ASSASSINATION  OF  PERCEVAL    159 

was.  No  man  in  private  life  had  ever  a  nicer  sense 
of  honour.  Never  was  there,  I  beUeve,  a  more 
affectionate  husband,  or  a  more  tender  parent." 

Wilberforce  said  of  him:  "  Perceval  had  the  sweet- 
est of  all  possible  tempers,  and  was  one  of  the  most 
conscientious  men  I  ever  knew;  the  most  instinctively 
obedient  to  the  dictates  of  conscience,  the  least 
disposed  to  give  pain  to  others,  the  most  charitable 
and  truly  kind  and  generous  creature  I  ever  knew." 

Mrs.  Perceval  was  quite  worthy  of  her  husband; 
she  was  a  most  benevolent,  tender-hearted,  charitable 
person,  an  exemplary  woman  in  all  essentials  and  in 
every  respect.  I  know  a  good  deal  of  her  from  having 
lived  nearly  a  twelvemonth  on  Blackheath,  near  to 
the  family  residence,  and  from  my  mother  having 
rather  frequently  been  the  medium  of  her  bounty 
to  the  sick  and  needy.  There  must  be  yet  living 
in  that  neighbourhood  many  an  elderly  person 
to  whom  the  name  of  Perceval  ought  to  be 
dear. 

Sir  James  Mackintosh,  who  had  just  returned  from 
India,  received  a  very  friendly  communication  from 
Mr.  Perceval  the  ver}^  day  on  which  he  was  shot. 
Had  the  pistol  missed  fire,  or  had  BelHngham  missed 
his  aim,  Sir  James  would  soon  have  been  properly 
provided  for.  I  have  elsewhere  shown  how  scurvily 
he  was  treated  by  his  friends  the  Whigs.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  mild  May  afternoon  on  which  the 
murder  was  committed.*  I  was  walking  towards 
the  Houses  of  Parliament,  to  look  with  boyish 
curiosity  at  the  Peers  and  Members,  when,  in  passing 
the  Horse  Guards,  I  saw  two  militar^^-looking  men 
walking  and  smoking  in  the  open  street.  This  was 
the  very  first  time  I  had  seen  such  a  thing  done  by 
gentlemen,  and  almost  the  first  time  I  had  ever  seen 
cigars.  In  my  young  days  only  old  gentlemen 
smoked,  and  they  made  use  of  clay  tobacco-pipes. 
Before  I  reached  the  lower  end  of  Parliament  Street 

*   nth  May,  181 2. 


i6o  SPENCER  PERCEVAL       [chap,  xvi 

I  saw  people  running  at  full  speed  towards  the  old 
House  of  Commons,  and  I  met  an  excited  crowd, 
and  heard  many  voices  saying  the  Prime  Minister 
had  just  been  shot  in  the  Lobby.  The  cigar-smoking 
in  the  street  and  the  horrible  murder  have  ever  since 
been  connected  and  linked  together  in  my  mind. 
When  I  think  of  those  cigars  I  think  of  Mr.  Perceval, 
and  when  I  think  of  him,  I  think  of  those  cigars. 
My  old  Scottish  acquaintance,  William  Jerdan,  origin- 
ator and  very  many  years  editor  of  the  Literary 
Gazette,  was  at  this  period  employed  as  parliamentary 
reporter  for  a  newspaper;  he  was  in  the  Lobby  when 
Bellingham  passed  him,  and  discharged  the  pistol, 
and  he  was  the  first  to  rush  to  the  aid  of  the  un- 
fortunate Minister.  I  think  he  relates  that  he  collared 
the  assassin,  and  forced  the  pistol  from  him.  Mr. 
Croker  has  convicted  Miss  Martineau  and  other 
writers  of  the  Liberal  school  of  downright  falsehood 
in  stating  that  a  multitude  yelled  and  exulted  at 
the  funeral  of  poor  Lord  Londonderr3^  I  am  afraid 
that  I  cannot  controvert  what  Sir  Samuel  Romilly 
states  in  his  diary  respecting  the  death  of  Perceval. 
He  says  that  among  the  multitude  which  rapidly 
collected  in  the  streets,  and  about  the  avenues  of 
the  House,  the  most  savage  expressions  of  joy  and 
exultation  were  heard.  I  can  only  say  that  they 
were  not  heard  by  me.  I  must,  however,  add  that 
the  person  in  w^hose  charge  I  was  grew  alarmed  at 
the  crowd  and  rush,  and  soon  took  me  away  from  the 
spot.  Romilly  says  that  he  was  induced  to  think 
that  the  English  character  must  have  undergone 
some  unaccountable  and  portentous  change.  As  I 
have  stated  elsewhere,  I  cannot  believe  that  the 
national  character  was  much  committed.  The  savage 
cries,  if  really  raised,  must  have  proceeded  from  the 
very  rabble  of  Westminster  and  To  thill  Fields. 
I  remember  well  walking  through  the  populous 
streets  and  suburbs  of  the  capital  on  that  afternoon, 
and  seeing  the  mixed  feelings  of  indignation,  horror, 


CHAP,  xvi]  PUBLIC  OPINION  i6i 

and  pity,  expressed  on  almost  every  countenance. 
There  may  possibly  have  been  among  the  rabble 
some  few  individuals  above  the  common  condition, 
or  not  of  the  very  lowest  classes,  but  these  must  have 
had  their  hearts  turned  and  set  on  fin^  by  rabid  Whigs 
and  Parliament  reformers,  by  demagogues  and 
haranguers,  and  by  scurrilous  party  newspapers, 
such  as  the  Independent  IVhii^,  which,  if  addressed 
to  a  more  excitable  and  more  sanguinary  people 
than  the  English,  might  have  induced  some  men 
not  merely  to  applaud  the  deed,  when  it  was  done, 
but  to  have  themselves  undertaken  the  assassination 
of  the  Minister,  as  a  foe  of  the  people,  a  traitor  to 
his  country,  and  as  the  meanest  and  most  hypocritical 
slave  that  had  ever  served  an  immoral,  depraved, 
and  tvrannical  Prince. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  HONOURABLE  MOUNTSTUART  ELPHINSTONE 

For  the  long  term  of  twenty-eight  years  have  I 
been  blessed  with  the  friendship  of  this  illustrious 
man,  and  most  amiable  and  perfect  gentleman.  I 
first  met  him  in  the  summer  of  1828,  at  Constanti- 
nople, in  the  house  of  the  Netherland  Ambassador, 
the  Baron  Zuyler  de  Nyevelt.  Mr.  Elphinstone  had 
resigned  the  governorship  of  Bombay  and  retired 
from  the  Indian  Service  about  a  year  before. 
Although  he  had  been  upwards  of  thirty  years  in 
India — without  ever  leaving  the  country  except  when 
on  his  mission  to  the  Afghans — his  lively  classical 
tastes  and  his  love  of  antiquities  and  research  made 
him  in  no  hurry  to  reach  the  country  and  home  he 
had  left  when  a  mere  stripling :  he  had  taken  what 
is  called  the  overland  route ;  he  had  visited  all  the 
most  remarkable  scenes  and  things  in  Eg^^pt  and 
Syria,  had  explored  all  the  most  noted  of  the  Greek 
Islands  of  the  Archipelago,  had  visited  the  Holy 
Land,  had  come  through  the  pass  of  Mount  Taurus, 
and  had  traversed  Asia  Minor  from  that  pass  as  far 
as  Smyrna,  and  on  to  the  Troad;  and  he  was  now 
contemplating  a  return  homeward  through  Greece 
and  Italy.  He  was  accompanied  by  a  Dr.  Gordon, 
in  the  Company's  Medical  Service,  and  by  Mr.  Arthur 
Steel,  of  the  Company's  Civil  Service,  and  a  young 
man  of  very  high  promise,  to  whom  Mr.  Elphinstone 
was  evidently  much  attached. 

For  the  nonce,  we  were  all  Dutchmen — that  is  to 
say,   we  had   all   Dutch   passports   and   were   under 

162 


CHAP,  xvii]  HIS  HOME  LIFE  163 

Dutch  protection,  for,  in  consequence  of  the  Battle 
of  Navarino,  Sir  Stratford  Canning,  as  well  as  the 
Ambassadors  of  France  and  Russia,  had  quitted  the 
Porte,  and  suspended  diplomatic  relations  in  the 
course  of  the  preceding  winter.  In  the  honest,  open- 
hearted,  very  hospitable  Netherlander  we  all  found 
an  excellent  protector.  Two  or  three  months  after 
my  arrival  at  Constantinople,  when  a  cjuacking, 
careless  Irish  doctor  was  killing  me  by  inches,  I 
certainly  owed  my  life  to  the  Baron,  his  Lady,  and 
a  very  able  Swedish  physician  in  their  service.  I 
never  knew  a  stranger  from  any  civilized  country 
pass  a  first  month  at  Stamboul,  or  anywhere  in  that 
neighbourhood,  without  an  attack  of  some  intlani- 
matory  disorder.  Mr.  Elphinstone  and  his  com- 
panions all  fell  ill,  and  my  turn  came  soon  after. 
Mr.  E.  and  poor  Steel  recovered  rapidly;  but  not  so 
Dr.  Gordon,  who  died  in  Greece.  Poor  Steel  was 
drowned  in  a  ditch  of  a  river  in  Ireland  in  the  fol- 
lowing summer.  On  my  reaching  England  I  renewed 
my  acquaintance  with  this  accomplished  person,  at 
the  hou>es  of  Ben  Hoare  and  of  his  father-in-law, 
dear  old  Brunei,  the  engineer.  Steel  was  a  ripe 
scholar,  a  clever  artist,  an  able  writer,  a  first-rate 
man  of  business ;  and  he  had  before  him  the  sure 
prospect  of  a  brilliant  Indian  career.  He  was  little 
more  than  thirty  when  he  went  over  to  Ireland  to 
visit  a  schoolfellow — and  to  perish.  "  And  I  and 
other  creeping  things  live  on." 

On  leaving  Constantinople  Mr.  Elphinstone  had 
the  kindness  to  say  that  we  should  be  sure  to  meet 
in  London,  and  that  he  would  gladly  renew  a  pleasant 
acquaintance.  I  reached  home,  in  very  reduced 
health,  in  the  spring  of  1829,  and  in  the  summer  of 
that  year  met  Mr.  E.  in  the  house,  in  the  Regent's 
Park,  of  Bishop  Heber's  widow.  There  was  a  pleasant 
party,  and  I  remember  tiiat  among  the  guests  were 
Mr.  Hallam  and  Washington  Irving,  with  both  of 
whom  Mr.  E.,who  had  not  previously  known  them, 


i64  MOUNTSTUART  ELPHINSTONE  [chap.xvii 

was  much  delighted.  We  sat  till  midnight,  and,  as 
our  roads  coincided,  we  walked  home  together,  walking 
very  slowly  and  talking  the  whole  way.  From  that 
evening  we  became  very  intimate.  I  have  said  that 
our  friendship  dates  from  twenty-eight  years  back; 
but  if  I  were  to  enumerate  all  the  kindnesses,  all  the 
hospitality,  all  the  instruction,  and  all  the  acts  of 
solid,  important  service,  rendered  by  him  to  me  and 
mine  during  this  long  interval,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  multiply  28  by  100.  In  the  course  of  this  season 
I  visited  him,  and  he  visited  me  in  my  humble  lodg- 
ings in  Berners  Street,  Oxford  Street,  very  frequently  ; 
and  then  we  often  met  at  Mrs.  Heber's,  at  the  Asiatic 
Society,  at  Mr.  John  Murra3^'s  the  publisher's,  at  Mrs. 
Leaves',  a  sister  of  "  Hadji  Baba  "  Morier,  and  at  other 
places  of  resort  in  good  society.  Wherever  Mr. 
Elphinstone  went,  he  was  a  favourite.  With  the 
exception  of  Lord  Hardinge  and  only  two  or  three 
others,  I  have  never  known  any  man  to  have  been 
so  universally  esteemed  and  beloved.  He  was  at 
this  time  in  a  tolerably  good  state  of  health;  indeed, 
in  very  good  health  for  one  who  had  spent  so  many 
years  of  his  life  in  Hindustan;  but  he  had  always 
rather  a  delicate  look,  and  now  through  many  years 
he  has  been  a  frequent  sufferer.  The  varied  learning, 
the  amount  of  general  information  he  possesses,  by 
themselves  alone,  render  him  a  most  remarkable 
man.  I  have  said  that  he  went  out  to  India  as  a 
mere  stripling ;  and  it  was  in  that  burning  climate  that 
he  acquired  nearly  all  that  he  knew  or  knows,  and 
that,  too,  almost  entirely  by  self-discipline  and  self- 
tuition.  "  In  India,"  he  says,  "  a  man  must  either 
study  or  take  to  gambling  or  drinking.  Everyone 
there,  whether  a  military  man  or  in  the  Civil  Service 
as  I  was,  has  so  very  much  time  on  hand."  Bishop 
Heber,  who  visited  him  and  stayed  some  time  with 
him  when  he  was  Governor  of  Bombay,  has  left  upon 
record  the  following  striking  and  elegant  tribute,  for 
the  perfect  truthfulness  of  which  I  can  vouch  : 


»/ 


CHAP,  xvii]     BISHOP  HEBER'S  TRIBUTE       165 

"  Mr.  Elphinstone  is,  in  every  respect,  an  extra- 
ordinary man,  possessing  great  activity  of  body  and 
mind;    remarkable    talent    for,    and    application    to, 
public  business ;  a  love  of  literature,  and  a  degree  of 
almost   universal   information   such   as    I    have   met 
with    in    no    other    person    similarly  situated ;    and 
manners  and  conversation  of  the  most  amiable  and 
interesting  character.     While  he  has  seen  more  of 
India  and  the  adjoining  countries  than  any  man  now 
living,  and  has  been  engaged  in  active  political,  and 
sometimes  military,  duties  since  the  age  of  eighteen, 
he  has  found  time  not  only  to  cultivate  the  languages 
of  Hindustan  and  Persia,  but  to  preserve  and  extend 
his  acquaintance  with  the  Greek  and  Latin   classics, 
with  the  French  and  Italian,  with  all  the  elder  and 
more   distinguished    English   writers,   and    with    the 
current  and  popular  literature  of  the  day,  both  in 
poetry,    histor}'-,    politics,    and    political    economy. 
With   these  remarkable  accomplishments,  and   not- 
withstanding a  temperance  amounting  to  rigid  ab- 
stinence, he  is  fond  of  society;  and  it  is  a  common 
subject  of  surprise  with  his  friends  at  what  hours  of 
the  day  or  night  he  finds  time  for  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge.     His  policy,  as  far  as  India  is  concerned, 
appeared  to  me  peculiarly  wise  and  liberal ;  and  he  is 
evidently  attached  to,  and  thinks  well  of,  the  country 
and  its  inhabitants.     His  public  measures,  in  their 
general  tendency,  evince  a  steady  wish  to  improve 
their   present   condition.     No   government   in    India 
pays  so  much   attention   to  schools  and   public  in- 
stitutions for  education.    In  none  are  the  taxes  lighter, 
and  in  the  administration  of  justice  to  the  natives 
in  their  own  language,  in  the  establishment  of  Pun- 
chayets,  in  the  degree  in  which  he  employs  the  natives 
in    official    situations,    and     the    countenance    and 
familiarity  he  extends  to  all  the  natives  of  rank  who 
approach  him,  he  seems  to  have  reduced  to  practice 
almost  all  the  reforms  which  had  struck  me  as  most 
required   in   the  system   of  government   pursued   in 


i66  MOUNTSTUART  ELPHINSTONE  [chap.xvii 

those  provinces  of  our  Eastern  Empire  which  I  had 
previously  visited.  His  popularity — though  to  such  a 
feeling  there  may  be  individual  exceptions — appears 
little  less  remarkable  than  his  talents  and  acquire- 
ments; and  I  was  struck  by  the  remark  I  once  heard, 
that  ^  all  other  public  men  had  their  enemies  and 
their  friends,  their  admirers  and  their  aspersers,  but 
that  of  Mr.  Elphinstone  everybody  spoke  highly.' 
Of  his  munificence — for  his  liberality  amounts  to  this 
— I  had  heard  much,  and  knew  some  instances  myself. 
With  regard  to  the  free  press,  I  was  curious  to  know 
the  motives  or  apprehensions  which  induced  Mr. 
Elphinstone  to  be  so  decidedly  opposed  to  it  in  this 
country.  In  discussing  the  topic  he  was  always  open 
and  candid,  acknowledged  that  the  dangers  ascribed 
to  a  free  press  in  India  had  been  exaggerated;  but 
spoke  of  the  exceeding  inconvenience,  and  even  danger, 
which  arose  from  the  disunion  and  dissension  which 
political  discussion  produced  among  the  European 
officers  at  the  different  stations ;  the  embarrassment 
occasioned  to  the  Government  by  the  exposure  and 
canvass  of  all  their  measures  by  the  Lentuli  and 
Gracchi  of  a  newspaper ;  and  his  preference  of  decided 
and  vigorous  to  half  measures,  where  an}^  restrictive 
measures  at  all  were  necessary.  I  confess  that  his 
opinion  and  experience  are  the  strongest  presumptions 
I  have  yet  met  with,  in  favour  of  the  censorship. 
Mr.  Elphinstone  is  one  of  the  ablest,  and  most  amiable 
men  I  ever  met  with." — Indian  Journal. 

Mr.  Elphinstone  has  rather  frequently  changed  his 
place  of  residence,  has  been  several  times  travelling 
on  the  Continent,  and  has  made  more  than  one 
sojourn  in  Rome;  but  I  have  never  been  long  with- 
out having  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him,  or  that  of 
hearing  from  him.  For  some  years  he  kept  his  head- 
quarters and  his  valuable  library  in  the  Albany. 
Three  East  Indians  were  living  there  at  the  same  time, 
and  in  the  same  corps  de  logis,  and  I  believe  on  the 
very     same    floor — Mr.    Elphinstone,    Lord    Glenelg, 


CHAP,  xvii]        HOUSE  AT  GODSTONE  167 

and  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay,  whom  people  will 
persist  in  calling  the  Historian,  although  with  him 
History  is  little  more  than  a  romance  and  a  political 
satire .  I  know  that  the  three  were  every  day  ascending 
and  descending  the  same  staircase.  Their  apartments 
were  in  the  principal  block  of  the  building — that  which, 
in  front,  looks  on  the  open  courtyard  and  on  Piccadilly. 
With  easy,  indolent,  good-natured  Lord  Glenelg  the 
case  was  different;  but  I  believe  that  there  was  not, 
and  never  could  have  been,  much  sympathy  between 
two  men  so  different  as  Macaulay  and  Elphinstone. 

As  years  and  infirmities  increased,  my  friend  left 
London  to  reside  almost  entirely  in  the  country.  He 
had  a  pretty  place  by  Dorking;  and  has  now,  and  has 
had  for  some  years,  a  very  charming  place,  Hookwood 
Park,  by  Godstone,  where  I  have  the  privilege  of  being 
a  frequent  guest.  The  quiet  village  church  stands 
at  the  end  of  the  park,  and  looks  holy  and  beautiful, 
as  seen  from  the  library  windows,  peeping  through 
the  park  trees.  I  scarcely  know  a  more  charming, 
more  thoroughly  English  little  vignette.  The  house 
is  nearly  all  over  library.  On  the  ground-floor  three 
spacious  rooms  open  upon  one  another,  and  these 
from  floor  to  ceiling  have  the  walls  covered  with  ex- 
cellent books;  while,  upstairs,  in  bedrooms  and 
dressing-rooms,  there  is  another  collection.  The 
works  are  in  a  great  variety  of  languages.  Many  are 
Italian,  as  he  is  very  fond  of  that  language  and  litera- 
ture. It  is  delightful  always  to  have  so  many  good 
books  of  reference  at  hand,  and  to  see  how  constantly 
and  with  what  spirit  he  uses  them.  Though  very 
infirm,  and  though  suffering  much  in  his  eyes,  he 
never  calls  in  either  servant  or  amanuensis,  but  always 
goes  himself  to  the  shelves  and  takes  down  the  book 
or  books  he  wants.  He  knows  where  to  la}'  his  hand 
on  every  volume,  every  pamphlet,  every  map  and 
chart.  He  takes  just  as  much  interest  in  all  that 
is  doing  in  science,  literature,  and  art,  as  he  did  when 
I  first  knew  him.     I  never  knew  so  keen  an  interest 


168  MOUNTSTUART  ELPHINSTONE  [chap.xvii 

in  any  man,  for  his  time  of  life.  He  is  almost  sure 
to  have  read  himself,  or  to  have  had  read  to  him,  the 
last  new  novel,  for  not  even  novels  escape  him.  He 
sees  but  little  society;  for  months  at  a  time  he  lives 
alone  with  his  books,  thoughts,  and  remembrances. 

When  he  goes  to  London  for  a  few  days  he  always 
puts  up  at  the  Waterloo  Hotel,  Jermyn  Street,  St. 
James's,  because  dear  Sir  Walter  lived  there  and  went 
thence  to  Scotland  to  die  at  Abbotsford.  I  have  often 
heard  him  regret  that  when  he  went  out  to  India  he 
was  too  young  to  have  made  the  acquaintance  of  the 
poet;  and  that  when  he  returned,  poor  Scott  was 
oppressed  by  his  financial  difficulties,  and  was  rapidly 
declining.  He,  however,  saw  him  rather  frequently 
and  always  speaks  of  him  with  warm  affection.  No 
one  living  is  better  acquainted  with  his  poems  and 
novels,  and  very  few  are  so  capable  of  appreciating 
them.  One  of  the  old  Scottish  friends  to  whom  he 
seems  most  attached  is  Lord  Murray,  the  Judge  and 
brother  to  the  late  Laird  Will  Murray,  a  very  keen 
Whig,  but  a  jovial,  hospitable,  open-hearted,  open- 
handed  man. 

Mr.  Elphinstone  does  not  like  rigid,  stiff,  sour  people . 

When  Governor  of  Bombay,  he  lived  like  a  Prince, 
or  rather  those  about  him  lived  as  a  Sovereign  Prince's 
people  might  live.  His  cellar  was  as  good  as  his 
kitchen;  the  best  wines  flowed  copiously,  but  during 
many  years  he  never  tasted  them  himself.  Within 
the  last  ten  or  twelve  years  he  has  taken  up  "  the 
milk  of  old  age  "  and  enjoys  a  few  glasses  of  good  old 
sherry.  The  port  and  claret  he  leaves  to  me.  He  is 
obliged  to  live  by  rule.  We  always  meet  at  breakfast 
at  nine,  and  sit  a  good  time  over  it.  He  then  retires 
for  an  hour  to  the  inner  library  to  read  or  to  answer 
letters.  At  about  eleven  we  go  out  into  the  park, 
and  sometimes  into  the  village,  talking  all  the  time. 
At  2  p.m.  we  lunch,  and  again  sit  a  good  while,  talking 
more  than  eating  or  drinking;  next  we  go  into  the 
drawing-room  and  discuss  books,  and  talk  till  about 


CHAP,  xvii]        A  GERMAN  SOCIALIST  169 

five,  when  he  takes  another  hour  to  himself;  at  seven 
we  dine,  then  talk  on  till  eleven,  and  then  to  bed. 

I  have  led  this  life  with  him  day  after  day,  and 
think  I  can  never  have  talked  and  listened  so  much 
to  any  other  person  in  the  same  given  time.  No 
matter  what  be  the  subject  introduced,  he  is  sure 
to  have  information  to  give,  or  some  new  view  to  sug- 
gest. Unhappily,  when  I  was  last  with  him,  in  June, 
1855,  I  found  that  an  old  tendency  to  deafness  had 
very  much  increased,  but  still  he  could  hear  me 
very  well,  and  he  encouraged  me  to  talk  away  as 
usual.  In  other  respects  there  had  been  a  visible 
change  for  the  worse,  and  that  within  a  very  few 
months.  He  had  had  influenza,  and  was  sufifering 
from  its  consequences.  On  leaving  him  at  the  hall 
door,  I  could  not  avoid  the  melancholy  impression 
that  I  had  seen  my  friend  and  benefactor  for  the  last 
time.  It  was  a  glorious  late  June  morning,  with 
bright  sky  and  warm  sunshine,  and  yet  with  a  fresh, 
invigorating  breeze. 

The  farmers  had  made  and  were  carrying  in  the 
hay,  the  sweet  odour  of  which,  mingled  with  the 
scent  of  sweetbriar  in  the  hedgerows,  filled  the  at- 
mosphere, and  made  it  a  delight  to  breathe;  but  my 
spirits  were  depressed  by  the  condition  of  my  friend, 
and  by  one  of  the  most  serious  domestic  calamities 
that  have  ever  visited  me.  I  rallied  in  the  railway- 
carriage,  between  Godstone  and  London,  being 
brought  to  myself,  or  rather  taken  out  of  myself,  by 
a  long-bearded  Pole,  and  a  longer-bearded  German, 
Socialists  both,  and  both  makers  of  barricades.  They 
were  coming  from  Paris,  declaring  with  many  an  oath 
that  there  was  no  living  there  now  that  the  grcdin 
Louis  Napoleon  had  got  the  French  into  such  a  timid, 
submissive,  anti-republican,  anti-democratic  condi- 
tion. The  Pole  had  taken  to  himself,  at  Glasgow,  a 
Scottish  wife;  and  she,  during  his  late  absence  in 
France,  had  taken  herself  off,  with  another  man,  to 
the  United  States  of  America. 


lyo  MR.  DAVIS  [chap,  xvii 

"  I  would  not  care  the  ash  of  this  cigar  for  her/' 
said  the  Pole,  "  but  she  has  sold  the  furniture  and 
carried  off  all  the  money."  The  German  thought  that 
if  the  secret  societies  and  clubbists  could  only  get  the 
upper  hand  on  the  Continent,  and  put  the  guillotine 
en  permanence ,  things  might  yet  go  well  with  honest 
men.  "  Out,"  said  the  Pole,  ''  fnais  il  nous  faudra, 
au  moins,  un  million  de  tetes.''  A  few  weeks  after 
this,  my  friend  John  Perceval  heard  the  very  same 
words  from  a  French  Socialist.  People  in  England 
are  not  aware  how  little  the  spirit  of  Jacobinism  is 
changed,  or  how  far  these  horrible  principles  extend 
in  France,  throughout  Germany,  and  in  Italy.  Let 
anything  fatal  happen  to  Louis  Napoleon,  and  it  wall 
be  found  that  we  have  been  sleeping  over  the  crater 
of  a  volcano. 


MR.  DAVIS,  JUDGE  AT  BENARES 

"  Old  Davis,"  as  he  was  called — he  lived  to  a  very 
great  age,  and  had  children  rather  late  in  life — was 
a  real  character,  and  one  of  the  bravest  of  little  men. 
He  was  father  of  the  present  Sir  Francis  Davis,  late 
Governor  of  Hong-Kong,  and  of  Mrs.  J.  F.  Lyall,  who 
has  been  mentioned  in  connection  with  Lord  Hardinge 
and  his  generous  doings. 

I  know  not  how  far  back  it  was  in  the  last  century 
that  Davis  went  out  to  India  in  the  Civil  Service; 
but  when  my  dear  friend  the  Hon.  Mountstuart 
Elphinstone  went  to  the  same  country  and  service, 
Davis  was  well  up  the  tree  of  promotion.  This 
was  in  the  year  1797-98.  Elphinstone  was  at  that 
time  little  more  than  a  mere  schoolboy,  having 
not  yet  counted  his  seventeenth  summer.  He  was 
at  once  placed  under  Davis,  who  took  him  into  his 
own  house,  and  looked  after  him  with  all  the  solicitude 
of  a  father,  while  Mrs.  Davis    acted  the  part  of  a 

other  towards  the  interesting  3^outh — for  interesting 


CHAP,  xvii]     DAVIS  AND  ELPHINSTONE         171 

Mountstuart  must  have  been  at  every  period  of  his 
Hfe. 

In  his  old  age  I  have  often  heard  him  attribute  his 
success  in  Hfe  to  the  fact  of  his  having  been  at  once 
put  under  the  care  and  guidance  of  these  excellent 
people.  Only  a  few  weeks  ago,  at  his  pleasant 
retirement  in  Hookwood  Park,  he  returned  to  the 
subject.  "  I  do  really  believe,"  said  he,  "  that  I 
owe  more  to  good  old  Davis  and  his  wife  than  to  any- 
one else,  or  to  all  else,  in  the  world.  But  for  them, 
I  might  have  gone  into  dissipation  and  excess,  like 
so  many  other  3^ouths  at  that  period.  They  kept 
me  at  home,  and  kept  me  employed.  You  may 
fancy  that  I  had  had  but  a  very  imperfect  scrambling 
education.  Besides,  what  can  a  boy  of  seventeen 
really  know  ?  Davis  was  well-informed,  very  clever 
as  a  man  of  business,  and  rather  fond  of  literature  as 
well  as  of  art.  He  had  good  books,  and  we  soon 
obtained  more.  I  then  took  seriously  to  educating 
myself,  and  in  Davis's  family  I  may  be  said  to  have 
laid  the  foundation  of  such  knowledge  as  I  possess, 
or  have  possessed.  I  could  not  be  too  grateful  to 
them." 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Davis  returned  to  England  many 
years  before  Mr.  Elphinstone,  but  when  he  came 
home  he  renewed  his  friendship,  and  he  treated  them 
as  his  most  valued,  best  friends,  until  their  deaths, 
only  a  few  years  since. 

According  to  Mr.  Elphinstone's  account,  while  he 
was  with  him  Davis  was  a  spare,  wiry,  strong,  but 
very  small  man.  At  times  he  was  rather  choleric 
and  peppery  in  his  temper;  but  this  was  natural 
enough,  seeing  that  he  was  a  Welshman,  and  was 
living  in  burning  Bengal.  He  was  very  active,  very 
capable  of  enduring  excessive  fatigue,  and  he  had 
nerve  enough  for  anything  that  might  be  done  or 
borne  by  mortal  man.  The  heroism  he  displayed  in 
defending  his  house  and  family  at  the  time  of  the 
revolt  of  Vizier  Ali,  and   the  massacre  of  Benares 


172  MR.  DAVIS  [chap.  XVII 

(14th  January,  1799),  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to 
pass  from  the  memory  of  Anglo-Indians  or  of  any 
Englishman.  His  son,  Sir  Francis,  has  published  a 
small  but  very  interesting  book  on  the  subject, 
which  does  not  appear  to  be  so  well  known  as  it 
ought  to  be.  It  presents  one  of  the  most  exciting 
chapters  or  episodes  to  be  found  in  British  Indian 
history.  At  the  time  of  the  events.  Sir  Francis  was 
a  child ;  but  when  he  wrote  his  narrative,  he  obtained, 
besides  papers,  the  personal  information  and  assist- 
ance of  Mr.  Elphinstone,  who  was  on  the  spot,  and 
was  himself  an  eye-witness  of  some  of  the  acts  of  the 
bloody  drama. 

The  little  book  is  as  true  as  it  is  interesting;  few 
narratives  can  have  higher  claim  to  implicit  credit. 

Vizier  Ali  and  his  band  of  assassins,  after  butchering 
Mr.  Cherry,  Captain  Conway,  and  Mr.  Evans,  made 
a  dash  at  Mr.  Davis's  house, situated  outside  the  town. 
A  single  sentry,  stationed  about  fifty  yards  from  the 
door,  was  shot  down.  The  Judge  sent  Mrs.  Davis, 
her  two  children,  and  all  the  servants,  to  the  terrace 
on  the  top  of  the  house,  and  then  ran  for  his  firearms, 
which  unfortunately  were  below.  But  the  murderers, 
about  two  hundred  in  all,  were  already  in  possession 
of  the  low^er  part  of  the  house;  and  the  only  weapon 
w^hich  Mr.  Davis  could  reach  was  an  Indian  pike  or 
spear,  which  chanced  to  be  upstairs.  This  pike, 
according  to  his  son.  Sir  Francis,  was  one  of  those 
used  by  running  footmen  in  India.  It  was  of  iron, 
plated  with  silver,  in  rings,  to  give  a  firmer  grasp, 
rather  more  than  six  feet  in  length,  and  had  a  long 
triangular  blade  of  more  than  twenty  inches.  With 
this  weapon,  and  single-handed,  the  Judge  defended 
himself  like  a  valiant  soldier,  and  saved  his  ow^n  life, 
the  lives  of  his  wife  and  children,  and  of  many  others. 
Taking  his  station  on  the  terrace,  on  one  knee,  just 
over  the  trap-door  of  the  staircase,  he  waited  for  the 
assault.  He  was  favoured  by  the  steepness  and 
narrowness  of  the  staircase,  which  allowed  only  a 


CHAP,  xvii]  VIZIER  ALI  173 

single  man  to  ascend  at  a  time.  It  opened  at  once  to 
the  terrace,  like  a  hatchway  on  board  ship;  but  it 
had  only  a  light  cover  of  painted  canvas  stretched 
on  a  wooden  frame.  This  opening  he  kept  uncovered, 
that  he  might  see  what  approached  from  below. 
The  first  ruffian  that  came  near  shook  his  sword 
and  made  use  of  very  foul  language,  to  which  Davis 
replied  by  telling  him  that  the  English  troops  were 
coming  up  from  camp,  and  by  thrusting  the  blade 
of  the  pike  into  his  arm.  The  coward  disappeared 
on  the  instant:  another  came  up,  but  being  wounded 
in  the  hand,  he  ducked  under  like  his  predecessor. 
No  further  attempt  was  made  on  that  well-defended 
staircase;  but  the  two  hundred  cowards  kept  firing 
up  at  the  terrace,  which  luckily  had  a  parapet. 
They  also  went  round  the  house  and  the  veranda  in 
search  of  some  easier  means  of  getting  to  the  house- 
top. The  Judge  could  not  quit  his  post  at  the  head 
of  the  staircase  for  a  moment  to  look  out;  and  one 
of  the  female  servants,  venturing  to  look  over  the 
parapet  wall,  was  shot  through  the  arm.  They  could 
now  only  remain  where  they  were,  anxiously  expect- 
ing the  arrival  of  some  of  the  military  or  of  some  of 
the  police;  and  in  this  anxiety  they  were  kept  for 
nearly  an  hour  and  a  half.  At  last  Davis  heard  the 
noise  of  many  persons  hastily  ascending  the  stairs. 
He  grasped  his  pike,  but  the  newcomers  were  friends, 
not  foes — they  consisted  of  a  native  officer  of  police 
and  some  fifteen  Sepoys.  Finding  that  he  could 
muster  such  a  force,  with  their  firelocks,  bayonets, 
and  fifteen  rounds  each,  the  brave  Judge  now  con- 
sidered his  danger  as  quite  over. 

"  I  beheve,"  says  Mr.  Elphinstone,  "  that,  at  that 
time,  little  Davis  with  his  fifteen  Sepoys  would  not 
have  hesitated  to  attack  a  thousand  of  the  rabble 
insurgents."  The  vile  gang  went  off  at  score  to 
plunder  and  burn  other  English  houses,  and  to  murder, 
which  they  did,  three  more  Englishmen.  In  a  brief 
space  of  time  a  small  advance  party  of  cavalry  from 

13 


174  MR.  DAVIS  [chap,  xvii 

General  Erskine's  camp  came  up  to  the  Judge's 
house,  and  it  was  soon  followed  by  the  entire  detach- 
ment, headed  by  General  Erskine  himself. 

The  insurgents  appeared  to  be  determined  to 
make  a  stand,  to  plunder  Benares,  and  then  to  set 
fire  to  the  four  corners  of  the  city.  In  marching 
through  one  of  the  suburbs  our  troops  suffered  con- 
siderably by  a  hot  fire  from  the  houses,  and  both 
of  General  Erskine's  orderlies  were  shot  at  his  side. 
But  they  reached  the  Nabob's  strongly- walled  and 
fortified  palace,  blew  open  the  gate  with  some  field 
pieces,  and  obtained  admission  to  the  principal  court 
and  then  into  every  part  of  the  edifice,  garden,  and 
grounds.  They  searched  there,  but  in  vain,  for  the 
dastardly  conspirator  and  assassin.  Vizier  Ali.  He 
had  fled  northwards  towards  Betaul,  accompanied 
by  all  his  w^ell-mounted  horsemen. 

In  his  early  days,  some  time  before  the  great 
French  Revolution  of  1789,  Mr.  Davis,  then  passion- 
ately fond  of  drawing  and  landscape-painting, 
travelled  on  the  Continent  and  resided  a  consider- 
able time  in  Paris,  where  he  attracted  some  attention 
as  an  amateur  artist.  Some  drawings  he  exhibited 
at  Paris  were  highly  admired  and  much  talked  of 
at  the  time.  He  continued  to  cultivate  this  taste 
in  India.  Being  at  an  up-country  station  near  to 
the  ruins  of  Gaur,  one  of  the  ancient  Hindu  capitals, 
he  set  out  alone,  and  on  foot,  one  cool  morning,  to 
make  sketches  of  those  remains.  He  was  intent  on 
his  work,  carrying  his  eye  from  the  ruins  to  his  sketch- 
book, from  his  sketch-book  to  the  ruins,  and  looking 
at  nothing  else,  when  all  at  once  he  heard  a  rustling 
noise,  and  a  heavy  tread.  Looking  sharply  round, 
he  saw,  close  on  his  right  flank,  a  huge  surly-looking 
bear,  staring  at  him  round  the  corner  of  a  ruin.  The 
only  weapon  he  had  with  him  was  a  penknife  to  cut 
his  pencils.  But  he  did  not  lose  heart  or  nerve;  he 
closed  his  sketch-book  with  a  slap,  raised  a  shout, 
and  stood  still  with  his  open  penknife  in  hand.     Bruin 


CHAP,  xvii]  A  BRAVE  JUDGE  175 

was  alarmed,  and  took  to  flight.  After  seeing  him 
disappear,  the  Judge  finished  his  sketch,  and  then 
walked  back  to  the  station,  vowing  that  he  would 
have  the  bear's  skin  for  a  rug.  He  said  nothing  about 
the  adventure,  but  the  next  morning  he  returned  to 
the  ruins  with  rifle  and  pistols,  and  a  hunting-knife 
which  might  be  useful  if  he  and  the  bear  should  come 
to  close  quarters.  He  entered  those  mournful  ruins 
of  remote  ages,  and  examined  every  part  of  them. 
There  was  no  bear.  The  following  morning  he  went 
again.  Still  no  Bruin.  He  went  again  and  again, 
until  one  fine  evening  he  surprised  the  bear  among 
the  ruins,  and  sent  his  rifle-bullet  through  his  heart. 
He  then  sent  servants  to  bring  in  the  dead  monster, 
whose  skin  afterwards  served  the  brave  little  Judge 
as  a  rug. 

I  first  had  this  bear  story  from  Mr.  Elphinstone, 
but  I  have  since  heard  it  repeated  as  a  family  tradi- 
tion by  old  Davis's  daughter,  Mrs.  J.  F.  Lyall. 

Mr.  E.'s  modesty  never  allows  him  to  make  himself 
the  hero  of  his  own  stories.  As  he  had  so  much  to 
do  with  the  preparation  of  Sir  Francis  Davis's  Benares 
narrative,  the  fact  is,  of  course,  not  mentioned  there; 
but  I  have  grounds  for  believing  that  it  was  through 
the  courage,  activity,  and  hard  riding  of  my  friend, 
who  chanced  to  be  in  the  town  when  the  insurrection 
broke  out,  that  the  native  police-officer  and  the  sepoys 
were  hurried  to  the  Judge's  house,  and  the  cavalry 
and  field-pieces  were  brought  up  so  quickly  and  so 
very  opportunely. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

ELIJAH  BARWELL  IMPEY 

While  at  Oxford,  where  he  became  what  is  called 
"  Faculty  Student,"  Impey,  whose  temper  and 
manners  were  always  endearing,  was  a  great  favourite. 
He  was  quite  a  pet  with  the  Dean  of  Christ  Church, 
Cyril  Jackson,  who  had  previously  been  tutor  to 
their  Royal  Highnesses  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  the 
Duke  of  York.  But  the  Dean,  as  a  shrewd,  practical 
man,  could  not  be  bhnd  to  Impey's  shortcomings, 
and  to  defects  in  his  intellectual  conformation,  which 
must  bar  his  progress  in  anything  like  real,  worldly, 
active  life.  Though  an  elegant  poet,  a  good  Grecian, 
a  first-rate  Latinist,  a  good  modern  linguist,  knowing 
well  German,  French,  Italian,  and  Spanish,  poor 
Impey  had  no  head  at  all  for  mathematics,  and  very 
little  head  even  for  the  four  rules  of  arithmetic. 
With  all  his  accomplishments,  he  could  never  sum 
up  an  hotel  bill,  or  divide  a  round  number  of  pounds 
and  shillings  into  three  equal  parts.  I  have  seen  him 
perplexed  in  the  extreme  by  his  housekeeper's  account 
of  a  week's  expenditure;  and  here  I  may  as  well 
confess  that  I  could  afford  him  little  help,  being 
scarcely  better  up  than  he  in  Cocker  or  W^alsingham. 

We  had  generally  to  call  in  Mr.  A.,  who  had  once 
been  in  some  trade  or  other,  and  who  always  re- 
mained, in  heart,  mind,  and  practice,  a  sharp  man 
of  business.  I  believe  that  A.  was  quite  incapable 
of  appreciating  what  was  in  us,  and  despised  us  for 
what  was  out  of  us. 

Very  many  years  before  this,  Cyril  Jackson  said 

176 


CHAP,  xviii]     HIS  DELICATE  HEALTH  177 

to  my  friend:  "  Impey,  you  are  a  clever  fellow  in 
your  way,  but  you  will  never  be  a  great  man,  for 
you  don't  know  your  multiplication  table,  and  will 
never  properly  learn  it." 

But  Impey  was  impeded  by  other  circumstances ; 
he  started  in  life  with  that  competency  of  fortune 
which  generally  proves  fatal  to  hard  work  or  per- 
severing application ;  he  had  a  very  delicate,  nervous, 
susceptible  constitution,  and  at  his  first  start  in  life 
he  made  a  sad  mistake  in  the  choice  of  a  profession. 
He  entered  the  Army  as  a  cornet  of  dragoons ;  after 
some  months,  being  lodged  in  one  of  our  cold,  com- 
fortless, damp  barracks,  he  was  attacked  by  a 
bronchial  disease,  which  drove  him  from  the  service, 
kept  him  nearly  all  his  life  a  valetudinarian,  and 
never  quite  left  him  until  death. 

His  father,  the  old  Judge,  had  a  brother  who  had 
been  a  physician;  and  he  wished  Elijah  to  follow  the 
profession  of  his  uncle,  who  I  believe  had  left  him  a 
nice  little  property.  But  Impey  would  never  have 
had  nerve  or  decision  enough  for  medical  practice. 
Neither  the  Bar  nor  the  Church  was  to  be  thought 
of,  as  he  had  an  impediment  in  his  speech,  and  a 
weakness  of  thorax  and  voice  after  his  barrack 
malady.  The  bronchitis  was  an  unfortunate  incident ; 
but  from  his  short  military  career,  and  his  careful 
drill,  Impey  derived  the  advantage  of  an  easy  and 
strikingly  elegant  carriage;  and  this,  like  the  disorder, 
accompanied  him  to  the  verge  of  the  grave.  That 
for  which  he  would  have  been  admirably  suited  was 
some  easy  diplomatic  employment,  or  some  post  in 
our  Foreign  Office,  where  trustworthiness,  intelligence, 
and  literary  and  philological  acquirements  were 
required.  When  well  advanced  in  years  and  con- 
siderably reduced  in  fortune,  he  did  apply  for  some 
such  post,  through  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne,  whose 
father  had  been  his  father's  intimate  friend.  The 
Marquis  told  him  that  possibly  with  time  and  with 
great   exertion — the   applicant   was   already   grey — 


178  ELIJAH  IMPEY  [chap,  xviii 


there  might  be  procured  for  him  a  situation  as  precis  | 

writer  in  the  Foreign  Office,  with  a  salary  of  from 

;^20o  to  ;<i300  per  annum.  f 

On  this  brilhant  distant  prospect  my  friend  turned 
his  back,  not  in  anger,  but  not  without  contempt, 
for  Lord  Lansdowne  owed  him  a  kind  turn ;  and  other  ; 

men  being  in  office,  or  having  patronage  or  influence, 
had  given  him  promises.  But  it  was  quite  natural 
that  he  should  be  thus  treated  by  an  ultra-liberal  v. 

Whig   Government.     Though   mild    and   considerate  |i 

in  politics,  as  in  everything  else,  Elijah  Impey  was  I 

a   Conservative  and   a   High   Churchman,   a  refined  f 

scholar,  admirably  qualified  for  the  post  he  aimed  at, 
and  a  most  entire  and  perfect  gentleman.  When 
did  the  Whigs  of  our  day  ever  employ  such  a  man, 
being  wholly  or  almost  wholly  without  parliamentary 
or  borough  interest  ? 

I  was  staying  for  a  day  or  two  with  Impey  down 
at  Sandgate,  in  the  old  hotel  close  by  the  seaside, 
the  then  keeper  of  which  was  a  very  uncourteous, 
uncleanly  Boniface.  After  enduring  many  discom- 
forts and  impositions — for  he  had  been  in  the  house 
some  weeks  before  I  joined  him — he  gently  com- 
plained to  the  landlord,  one  morning  after  breakfast, 
of  certain  greasy  plates  and  dirty  napkins.  No 
reproof  could  be  more  gentle,  but  that  ill-conditioned 
Boniface  took  it  in  dudgeon,  flew  out  in  a  passion, 
and  in  the  peculiar  style  of  such  people  told  my 
friend  to  his  face  that  he  was  no  gentleman.  "  Am 
I  not?"  said  Impey.  "Then  I  have  been  living 
sixty-five  years  in  the  world  under  a  great  mistake. 
You  had  better  bring  your  bill."  The  bill,  an  un- 
conscionable one,  was  brought  and  paid,  and  we  took 
our  departure  for  the  Pavilion  at  Folkestone,  where 
we  found  much  civility.  In  his  later  years,  when 
his  infirmities  were  thick  upon  him,  and  when  even 
an  hour's  reading  distressed  him,  poor  Elijah  would 
often  complain  to  me  that  his  had  been  a  misled, 
idling,  vacant,  wasted  existence;  that  he  ought  to 


I 


f: 


CHAP,  xviii]      HIS  SOLITARY  LIFE  179 

have  taken  up,  early  in  life,  some  useful  pursuit,  to 
have  cultivated  some  profession,  the  gains  of  which, 
added  to  his  patrimony,  would  have  enabled  him 
prudently  to  marry  some  accomplished  lady  of  his 
own  condition.  "  Had  I  done  this,"  said  he,  "  I 
should  not  have  known  the  wearying  listlessness,  the 
ennui,  the  spleen,  which  have  so  frequently  tor- 
mented me;  and  now,  instead  of  being  alone  in  the 
world,  dependent  on  mercenary  domestics,  who  treat 
me  as  you  see,  I  might  have  a  faithful,  affectionate 
companion,  and  a  child  or  two  sitting  by  my  fire- 
side !" 

I  always  did  my  best  to  dissipate  these  vain  regrets. 
I  used  to  tell  him,  with  all  the  sincerity  of  inward 
conviction,  that  his  life  had  not  been  thrown  away; 
that  he  had  been  highly  useful  in  the  world  as  re- 
minding our  ever-changing  society  of  what  the  refined, 
accomplished  English  gentleman  of  the  good  old 
school  had  been;  that  his  literary  conversation,  his 
just  taste  and  criticism,  had  been  serviceable  to 
many  younger  men;  and  that  some  of  his  literary 
exercises  would  survive  him  and  prove  that  he  had 
been  no  sordid,  sensual,  or  common  man. 

When  I  was  departing  for  Turkey,  in  1847,  he 
was  breaking  up,  and  he  expressed  a  doubt  as  to 
whether  he  should  live  to  see  me  on  my  return. 
"  Live  on,  my  dear  Impey,"  said  I ;  "  live  on  to  give 
the  world  assurance  of  an  English  gentleman,  a 
character  becoming  every  day  more  scarce."  He  did 
live  to  witness  my  return  in  the  autumn  of  1848; 
but  I  saw  him  but  once,  and  then  both  his  wit  and 
his  memory  were  gone.  He  died  in  the  following 
spring.  I  grieved  for  his  loss;  but  it  was  better  that 
he  should  go.  He  was  well  prepared.  For  many 
years  his  daily  life  had  been  a  preparation  for  death ; 
life  no  longer  offered  him  anything  but  suffering. 

Considering  his  temperament  and  his  infirmities, 
it  was  quite  wonderful  he  should  have  lasted  as  long 
as  he  did.     He  was  nearly  seventy  when  he  died, 


1 80  ELIJAH  IMPEY  [chap,  xviii 

and  was  carried  to  Hammersmith  Church,  to  be 
deposited  in  the  family  vault  by  the  side  of  his  mother 
and  of  his  father,  Sir  Elijah,  the  much-calumniated, 
upright,  able  Indian  Judge,  and  most  excellent  and 
able  man.  I  still  beheve  that  my  dear  friend's  life 
was  shortened  by  the  excessive  anxiety  he  felt,  and 
the  labour  he  underwent,  in  justifying  his  father's 
memor}^  from  the  reckless  aspersions  and  ignorant, 
blundering,  inconsiderate  calumnies  of  the  Right 
Hon.  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay,  who,  when  con- 
victed of  misrepresentation,  falsehood,  and  slander, 
would  not  confess  either  his  mistakes  or  his  sins, 
would  not  alter  a  line  to  accommodate  it  to  truth, 
would  not  retract  or  cancel  a  single  word.  And  not 
a  word  has  this  right  hon.  lampooner  ever  retracted, 
and  his  falsehoods,  repeated  in  many  successive 
editions  of  his  Essays,  are  still  running  through 
a  thoughtless,  little-serious-reading  world,  and  are 
accepted  by  most  people  as  indisputable  facts.  Mrs. 
Harrison,  w4fe  of  Archdeacon  Harrison,  our  Canter- 
bury neighbour,  being  a  Thornton  and  one  of  that 
good  stock  so  intimately  connected  with  Reginald 
Heber,  and  which  for  so  very  many  3^ears  knew  and 
cherished  Elijah  Impey,  can  bear  testimony  to  the 
acuteness  of  his  suffering  on  the  publication  of 
Macaulay 's  atrocious  attacks  on  his  father's  good 
name  and  fame;  suffering  which  did  not  vent  itself 
and  evaporate  then,  but  continued  to  the  end  of  his 
days.* 

Sir  George  Rose,  Mr.  Longlands,  Mr.  Gleig,  and 
many  other  surviving  friends  can   bear  witness   to 

*  See  "  Memoirs  of  Sir  Elijah  Impey,  Knt.,"  by  Elijah  Bar- 
well  Impey,  1846. 

In  the  introduction  to  this  book,  written  "  in  refutation  of 
the  calumnies  of  the  Right  Hon.  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay," 
the  author  gives  an  account  of  his  first  introduction  to  MacFar- 
lane,  and  expresses  his  gratitude  to  him  for  his  assistance  in 
clearing  his  father's  memory  from  the  aspersions  cast  upon  it. 
"  For  what  the  author  of  '  Our  Indian  Empire  '  has  done 
towards  the  elucidation  of  truth,  it  behoves  not  only  me  and  my 
relatives,  but  every  honest  reader  of  his  country's  annals,  to  be 
grateful." 


CHAP,  xviii]      MACAULAY'S  ESSAYS  i8i 

the  same  point.  But  none  know  the  case  better 
than  I  do,  for  no  one  in  the  latter  part  of  his  hfe  was 
so  entirely  in  his  confidence  and  so  much  with  him, 
and  nobody  worked  with  him  and  helped  him  so 
much  as  I  did  when  he  was  preparing  the  Memoirs 
of  his  father.  Nothing  short  of  his  strong  religious 
feelings,  the  alteration  of  public  opinion  and  opera- 
tive law  as  to  duelling,  and  his  conviction  that 
though  he  might  call  Macaulay  would  not  come, 
and  so  an  air  of  ridicule  might  be  cast  on  the  whole 
thing,  could,  I  am  persuaded,  have  prevented  Impey 
from  calHng  out  the  essayist,  after  he  had  refused 
every  sort  of  retraction,  and  had  reprinted  and 
republished  his  obnoxious  essay,  precisely  as  it 
originally  stood. 

Gleig,  though  in  Holy  Orders,  after  having  been  in 
the  Army,  had  I  believe  an  almost  equal  difficulty 
in  restraining  himself  from  calling  to  account  the 
slanderer,  who,  in  that  essay  and  review  about 
Warren  Hastings  and  Sir  Elijah,  had  taunted  and 
grossly  outraged  him,  in  his  twofold  capacity  of 
soldier  and  Christian  priest.  Would  Macaulay  have 
ventured  on  this  outrage,  if  Gleig  had  still  worn  a 
black  stock,  and  not  a  white  cravat  ?  I  will  venture 
to  answer  the  question  I  have  put.  Macaulay,  whose 
personal  timidity  is  quite  equal  to  his  literar}^  im- 
pudence and  malevolence — Macaulay,  who  ran  away 
from  London  at  the  mere  scent  of  a  distant  and  a 
problematical  duel  with  someone  of  Dan  O'Connell's 
tail,  and  who  lay  perdu  nearly  a  week  at  Portsmouth 
before  the  ship  which  was  to  convey  him  to  Calcutta 
was  ready  to  take  him  on  board,  would  never  have 
so  insulted  Gleig  if  he  had  been  in  the  Army  instead 
of  being  in  the  Church.  If  Macaulay  had  declined 
to  fight,  the  strong,  high-spirited  author  of  the 
"  Subaltern  "  w^ould  have  bestowed  upon  him  that 
horse-whipping  which  he  had  so  richly  merited.  The 
expected,  but  never  fought,  duel  with  the  Irishman  is 
a  tale  that  I  may  tell  hereafter.    My  friend,  Matthew 


i82  ELIJAH  IMPEY  [chap,  xviii 

Davenport  Hill,  at  that  time  Member  for  Hull, 
was  the  party  really  assailed  by  the  Irish  Tail;  for 
a  time  he  was  thought  to  be  in  some  danger,  but 
Macaulay  was  never  in  any  peril  at  all.  Yet  he 
deserted  his  personal  as  well  as  political  friend, 
M.  D.  Hill,  vanished  from  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  bolted  to  the  outport. 

Kind,  humorous,  genial,  gentlemanl}-  Impey  never 
disliked  a  joke,  though  it  were  ever  so  much  at  his 
own  expense.  In  the  later  and  rather  uneventful 
stages  of  his  life,  there  were  three  synchronisms — 
he  went  to  live  at  Clapham,  he  began  to  write  un- 
successful plays,  and  he  made  a  purchase  at  Dollond's. 
Sir  George  Rose  put  all  this  into  one  of  his  in- 
numerable jests  in  rhyme : 

"  On  Clapham  Common  lived  a  bard, 
And  he  was  wondrous  wise; 
So  he  took  to  writing  spectacles. 
And  wearing  them  likewise. 
And  when  his  eyes  were  written  out, 
Still  worse  the  mischief  grew, 

For  the  gods  not  only  d d  his  eyes. 

But  his  spedacies  too." 

With  his  own  hand  Impey  copied  the  lines  into 
a  sort  of  album  or  scrap-book,  which  always  lay 
open  upon  his  drawing-room  table,  and  he  would 
often  repeat  them  in  society,  as  one  of  his  friend 
Rose's  very  good  things.  This  Sir  George  Rose, 
who  had  made  his  way  at  the  Chancery  Bar,  was 
in  no  way  related  to  or  connected  with  old  George 
Rose,  the''  Pitt  "Rose;  nor  with  old  George's  son,  my 
inimitable  friend,  W.  S.  Rose.  A  droll  he  certainly 
was,  and  in  many  matters  exceedingly  ready,  quick, 
and  witty;  but  I  don't  know  that  his  wit  was  ever 
very  much  to  my  taste,  or  that  I  very  much  liked  the 
pompous,  strutting,  bumptious,  corpulent  little  man. 
I  would  not  have  given  one  of  Rose's  good  things 
for  a  score  of  his;  and,  as  for  personal  qualities,  and 
likeablenesses,  "  Oh/  Signor  }nio  I  quaV  lungo  inter- 
vallor' 


CHAP,  xviii]     HASTINGS  ON  BREAKFASTS     183 

The  great  ex-Governor-General  of  India,  Warren 
Hastings,  held  breakfasts  to  be  a  moral  index,  and 
always  rather  attentively  observed  whether  his  young 
friends,  more  particularly,  made  a  good  matutinal 
meal.  Impe}^  in  his  Christ  Church  (Oxford)  days, 
was  his  frequent  guest,  generally  riding  across  country 
from  his  Alma  Mater  on  a  pretty  Arab  which 
Hastings  had  given  him.  One  morning,  next  after 
his  arrival  at  Daylesford,  Impey's  appetite  failed  him, 
and  he  left  his  ham  and  cold  chicken  untouched  on 
his  plate. 

"  Elijah,"  said  the  great  man,  "  how  is  this  ?  You 
don't  eat  your  breakfast.  I  like  to  see  a  man  eat 
a  good  breakfast ;  I  take  it  as  a  sign  that  he  is  leading 
a  moral  and  proper  life.  I  never  knew  the  loose, 
irregular  liver  that  was  a  good  breakfast-eater. 
Elijah,  I  hope  that  you  do  not  sit  up  too  late  at  night 
either  over  your  books  or  at  your  Oxford  wine 
parties  ?" 

Impey  in  his  old  age  confessed  to  me  that  at  that 
period  he  very  often  did  both  by  turns,  reading  late 
and  drinking  late;  the  last,  if  not  the  first,  being 
the  general  habit  of  gentleman  commoners  in  those 
days. 

When  in  the  country  and  in  health,  the  ex-Governor- 
General  who  had  saved  and  then  so  vastly  extended 
our  Indian  Empire,  always  read  family  prayers  before 
breakfast,  and  a  short  service  in  the  evening  before 
the  household  retired  to  bed.  He  composed  some 
prayers  himself.  Impey  possessed  one  of  these,  and 
used  occasionally  to  read  it  in  the  evening  to  his 
•domestics  and  the  friend  or  two  he  might  have  staying 
with  him.  It  was  a  beautiful  prayer;  better  than 
commonly  falls  from  our  Bishops  or  Archbishops. 
I  must  try  to  obtain  a  copy  of  it  from  Mr.  Archer. 

Nearly  everything  I  heard  from  Impey  about 
Warren  Hastings  went  to  raise  my  already  very  high 
estimate  of  that  remarkable  man  and  for  a  time 
much-traduced    personage.     Every    letter    or    paper 


1 84  ELIJAH  IMPEY  [chap,  xviii 


written  by  him — and  Impe}'  had  mountains  of 
such  autograph  documents — tended  the  same  way.* 
Hastings  was  a  mortal  man;  and  he  had  been,  in 
times  of  enormous  difficulties,  a  Governor-General; 
he  had  his  weaknesses,  he  had  his  moral  shortcomings ; 
but,  in  the  main,  he  must  have  been  a  most  high- 
minded,  generous-hearted,  disinterested  statesman, 
and  in  private  hfe  one  of  the  most  affectionate  and 
engaging  of  men. 

*  Impey  gave  these  papers,  by  will,  to  the  British  Museum 
Library. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  EMPEROR  ALEXANDER  I.  OF  RUSSIA 

I  WELL  remember  the  rainy,  gloomy  December  day, 
in  1825,  on  which  Count  Stackelberg,  the  Russian 
Minister  Plenipotentiary  at  Naples,  invited  a  very 
numerous  party  to  celebrate  the  anniversary  of  the 
Emperor's  birthday.  Prince  Ischitella  was  one  of 
the  guests,  and  I  was  dining  with  his  family,  who 
occupied  a  part  of  the  same  immense  palazzo  in 
which  the  Count  had  his  residence.  At  the  appropri- 
ate time  the  Minister  and  all  his  guests  stood  up, 
glass  in  hand,  to  drink,  with  all  the  honours,  the 
health    of    the    Emperor    Alexander.     The    Cavalier 

Don   Luigi   Medici,   turning   to   the   Due  said, 

quite  sotto  voce,  "  Noi  bevtamo  alia  sua  salute,  ed  egli 
e  mortef'  ("We  drink  to  his  health,  and  he  is  dead!") 
The  Due  was  electrified,  but  said  nothing.  The 
toast  was  repeated,  and  the  feast  went  on  merrily 
to  its  conclusion.  Just  before  going  to  it,  Medici 
had  received  despatches  by  a  quick  courier;  but  he 
did  not  consider  it  consistent  with  Court  and  diplo- 
matic etiquette  either  to  interrupt  the  banquet,  or 
to  be  the  first  to  announce  the  fatal  news  to  the 
Emperor's  own  Minister.  Count  Stackelberg's  courier 
did  not  reach  Naples  till  late  on  the  following  day. 
When  the  dinner-party  broke  up,  Medici  and  the  Due 
imparted  the  tidings  to  two  or  three  friends  as  they 
were  leaving  the  Count.  Prince  Ischitella,  who  came 
up  to  us  from  the  banquet  at  no  ver^^  late  hour,  was 
deeply  affected  by  the  news,  by  Medici's  whispered 
remark,  and  by  the  contrast  between  the  jollity  of 

185 


i86  GEORGE  CANNING  [chap,  xix 

the  scene  and  the  fact  of  death.  Yet  the  Prince  was 
no  partisan  of  Russia,  and  no  personal  friend  of  the 
deceased  Emperor.  When  Murat  was  King  of  Naples, 
he  served  on  his  staff;  he  accompanied  that  daring, 
dashing  sabreur  all  through  the  fatal  Russian  campaign 
of  1 812,  was  in  the  Battle  of  Smolensk,  and  other 
murderous  affairs,  and  was  all  but  mortally  wounded 
at  the  bloody  Battle  of  Borodino;  where,  without 
counting  the  wounded,  10,000  French  and  about 
15,000  Russians  lay  side  by  side,  dead  on  the  field, 
or  in  the  redoubts.  In  the  tragical  retreat  from 
Moscow,  when  he  was  suffering  greatly  from  his 
uncured,  open  wound,  and  from  the  intensity  of 
the  cold,  Murat  divided  with  him  his  last  bottle  of 
wine,  a  magnum  of  burgundy. 


GEORGE  CANNING 

When  Stratford  Canning  showed  his  poem  on  the 
"  Downfall  of  Bonaparte  "  to  his  gifted  cousin, 
Mr.  Canning  said:  "The  verses  are  very  well,  but 
I  wish,  before  writing  them,  that  3^ou  had  recollected 
our  good  Eton  rule,  never  to  strike  your  adversary 
when  he  is  down.  I,  in  my  time,  struck  Bony 
pretty  often,  in  prose  and  verse,  and  some  of  my 
blows  were  thought  to  be  hard  and  telling,  but  that 
was  debout,  when  he  was  up  and  full  of  fight.  You 
hit  him  when  he  is  prostrate."  Sir  Stratford  told 
me  this  in  London,  in  1835,  as  he  was  giving  me  a 
MS.  copy  of  his  verses,  which  have  been  praised 
a  great  deal  more  than  they  deserve,  for  the}'  do  not 
ascend  higher  than  respectable  mediocrity. 


NAPOLEON 

In  the  uneasy  interval  between  the  two  terrible 
battles  of  Leipzig,  while  he  was  making  a  last  trial 
to  win   back    his  father-in-law  Francis,  he  said   to 


CHAP.  XIX]  QUEEN   HORTENSE  187 

Merveldt,  that  Emperor's  diplomatist  and  General: 
"  I  see  !  Austria  now  wants  to  muzzle  the  lion 
completely  !  And  she  will  not  be  content  until 
she  has  cut  off  his  mane  and  deprived  him  of  his 
claws." 

Quite  recently  M.  Villemain  has  given  these  words, 
and  given  them  correctly,  in  his  "  Souvenirs  Con- 
temporains  " ;  I  heard  them  thirty-five  years  ago 
from  an  Austrian  officer,  who  had  served  on  Merveldt's 
staff. 


QUEEN  HORTENSE  :    A  MOTHER'S  PREDICTION 

In  1846,  old  Mr.  B.  being  at  Constance,  made  ac- 
quaintance with  Hortense,  ex-Queen  of  Holland, 
wife  of  Louis  Bonaparte,  and  daughter  of  Josephine 
Beauharnais,  first  wife  of  Napoleon  I.  The  lady 
talked  a  great  deal  about  her  son,  Louis  Napoleon, 
now  Emperor  of  the  French.  "  The  world,"  said 
she,  "  does  not  know  my  son.  He  is  silent  and 
retiring,  more  like  an  Englishman  than  a  Frenchman ; 
but  he  thinks — he  is  always  thinking.  I  know  him 
to  possess  extraordinary  abilities,  and  a  perseverance 
a  toute  epreuve.  His  past  failures  go  for  nothing. 
If  he  live,  he  will  yet  be  Emperor  of  the  French. 
I  am  sure  of  it."  At  that  time  no  prediction  could 
seem  wilder  than  this.  Old  Mr.  B.  did  not  live 
quite  long  enough  to  witness  its  fulfilment;  but  he 
lived  to  see  Louis  Napoleon  President  of  the  French 
Republic,  and  that  that  Republic  must  very  soon  end 
in  an  Imperial  despotism. 

For  a  very  long  time,  and  down  to  the  Revolution 
of  1848,  and  his  recall  to  France,  a  very  mean  opinion 
w^as  certainly  entertained  in  London  society  of 
Louis  Napoleon ;  but  even  then  there  were  some 
who  spoke  very  highly  of  his  abilities.  Among  these 
were  Lord  Brougham  and  Count  D'Orsay.  I  do 
not    know   that   either   predicted,   years    before   the 


1 88  ROSSINI  [chap,  xix 

event,  that  he  would  be  Emperor,  but  they  both 
thought  that  his  talents  would  carry  him  on,  and  that 
his  career  would  be  a  very  extraordinary  one. 


ROSSINI 

About  the  year  1 817-18,  this  popular  and  eminent 
composer,  who  was  a  man  of  great  natural  wit,  and 
one  who  would  have  succeeded  in  nearly  any  other 
science  or  pursuit  if  he  could  have  seriously  taken 
it  up,  when  writing  to  his  old  mother,  always  addressed 
the  letters  thus :  Alia  Signora  G.  Rossini,  Madre 
del  celeberrinio  Maestro  Gioacchino  Rossini,  Pesaro. 
I  think  he  did  this  in  joke,  I  cannot  think  it  was  done 
in  pride  or  vanity.  He  had  no  such  bias.  Rossini's 
passion  was  a  love  of  money — he  cared  nothing  for 
fame,  except  in  so  far  as  it  might  bring  him  in  dollars, 
scudi.  Napoleons,  or  English  sovereigns.  He  is  one 
of  the  very  few  men  of  genius  I  have  ever  knowm  to 
be  so  mean,  and  in  some  respects  sordid,  and  to  have 
such  a  passion  for  mere  gold.  If  a  fiacre  had  to  be 
discharged,  or  if  there  were  anything  else  to  pay, 
the  Maestro  never  had  any  money  about  him,  he 
had  always  forgotten  his  purse  on  his  dressing-table. 
His  friends,  no  matter  how  much  younger  or 
poorer  than  himself,  must  disburse  for  him,  and  he 
would  pay  them  next  time,  which  he  never  did,  for 
there  never  was  a  time  when  he  had  his  purse  about 
him.  Even  in  Italy,  and  long  before  he  came  to 
Paris  and  London,  he  made  large  sums  by  his 
compositions,  hoarded  what  he  made,  and  lived  at 
large  upon  the  Impresarios  and  others  among  his 
innumerable  friends ;  and  3^et,  to  make  his  lucre  more, 
he  contracted  a  disgraceful  marriage,  and  in  a  very 
disgraceful  manner,  with  the  Colbran,  the  mistress 
of  Domenico  Barbaja,  the  Impresario  of  San  Carlo, 
in  whose  house  and  at  whose  table  he  had  been 
chiefly  living  for  four  or  five  years.     Yet  would   I 


CHAP.  XIX 


ROSSINI 


189 


not  be  too  censorious  of  Gioacchino  Rossini,  for 
I  loved  his  drollery,  and  more  than  once  helped  to 
powder  his  head,  and  fit  on  his  Court  dress  {obligato 
operations),  when  he  was  going  to  produce  a  new 
opera  in  the  presence  of  old  King  Ferdinand  and  his 
Court,  on  a  Gala  night. 


CHAPTER    XX 

COUNT  PECCHIO 

Giuseppe  Pecchio,  a  Lombard  and  Milanese,  was 
about  the  only  Italian  revolutionist  or  Liberal  that 
I  ever  really  liked,  or  with  whom  I  could  keep  up 
an  uninterrupted  intimacy  and  friendship  to  the  last. 
He  had  more  wit,  more  general  information,  and  more 
genius,  than  all  the  rest  of  the  Liberali  put  together. 
He  was  also  a  fine,  spirited,  manly  little  fellow, 
exceedingly  active,  enterprising,  and  full  of  resources 
and  courage. 

Though  bred  in  Italy,  and  only  a  civilian,  he  was 
fond  of  athletic  exercises,  rode  boldly,  and  was  first- 
rate  with  the  rapier.  It  rejoiced  my  heart  to  see 
the  spare  little  man,  for  many  years  nearly  constantly 
a  valetudinarian,  disarm,  in  about  two  seconds,  a 
big,  hectoring  Frenchman  who  came  to  Brighton 
with  the  reputation  of  a  grand  spadassin. 

Then,  Pecchio  was  always  outspoken,  sincere,  and 
truthful.  Most  of  the  Italian  refugees  gave  out  in 
England  that  they  had  never  done  anything  to 
deserve  from  their  several  governments  either  exile 
or  any  other  pain  or  penalty ;  that  they  had  been  un- 
justly condemned  on  the  evidence  of  suborned,  hired 
witnesses;  that  they  were  as  innocent  as  so  many 
bleating  lambs,  and  that  eternal  infamy  would  rest 
on  their  princes  and  governments  for  their  con- 
demnation, exile,  and  hard  suffering  in  a  foreign 
land. 

Some  of  them,  again,  would  shape  their  tale  accord- 
ing to  society  and  circumstances:  if  they  found  *'  fit 

190 


CHAP.  XX]  ITALIAN  REFUGEES  191 

audience,"  which  they  frequently  did  among  our 
ultra-Whigs,  Radicals,  and  Levellers,  they  would  take 
pride  in,  and  claim  credit  for,  their  revolutionism, 
and  tell  how  they  had  intended  to  dispose  of  their 
princes,  priests,  and  aristocrats,  had  they  only  suc- 
ceeded in  their  rivoluzione  ;  if  they  fell  among  Con- 
servatives, or  men  of  moderate  principles  sure  to  be 
disgusted  with  secret  societies,  republican  plots,  and 
other  political  excesses,  they  would  read  their  story 
backwards.  They  would  say  that  they  had  never 
aimed  at  anything  beyond  a  mild,  limited  monarchical 
constitution  like  that  of  England — for  this  they  had 
wished  and  sighed;  but  they  had  never  plotted  or 
conspired  to  bring  it  about,  they  had  never  con- 
templated wrong  or  violence  to  their  rulers,  they  were 
outcasts  only  for  having  entertained  some  liberal 
opinions,  and  for  having  secretly  desired  to  be 
governed  as  Englishmen  were,  and  could  there  be 
crime  in  this  ? 

I  have  heard  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  of  these 
refugees  declare,  in  one  sort  of  society,  that  he  and 

his  friend  Major  had  originated  and  organized 

plots  at  such  and  such  places ;  that  they  had  arranged 
the  means  of  carrying  off  their  respective  sovereigns 
to  castles  on  the  Apennines,  or  for  cutting  their 
throats,  if  need  should  be;  that  they  had  tampered 
with  the  troops,  and  had  won  over  some  of  the  police 
and  gendarmerie ;  that  they  had  pretty  well  all  the 
professors  and  students  at  their  beck  and  call,  and 
that  they  had  conceived  and  arranged  the  beautiful, 
strategical  scheme  of  bringing  over  all  the  barges, 
boats,  and  punts,  from  the  left  to  the  right  bank  of 
the  Po,  so  that,  when  the  bridges  should  be  broken 
down,  the  Austrian  troops  would  not  be  able  to  cross 
the  river  and  get  at  them.  In  company  of  another 
sort,  I  have  heard  this  man,  and  still  more  his  friend 
and  brother-conspirator,  the  Major,  solemnly  protest 
that  they  had  never  been  in  any  plot  at  all,  that  they 
abhorred  conspiracies,  that  they  had  been  sentenced 


194  COUNT  PECCHIO  [chap,  xx 

trymen  ought  not  to  forget,  or  to  let  perish.  His 
"  Life  of  Ugo  Foscolo  "  is  a  very  model  of  literary 
biography,  an  affecting  account  of  the  aberrations, 
sufferings,  and  enjoyments,  of  a  man  of  poetical 
temperament,  of  a  man  of  genius.  On  the  whole,  I 
think  I  prefer  it  to  Johnson's  "  Life  of  Savage"; 
it  seems  to  me  more  real,  more  true,  and  more 
touching. 

Savage  was  but  a  mediocre  poet  at  best ;  compared 
as  a  poet  with  Foscolo,  he  sinks  into  insignificance; 
and  if  reference  be  had  to  classical  learning  and 
varied  accomplishments,  he  becomes,  in  the  com- 
parison, a  poor  creature  indeed  ! 

I  have  heard  Tuscans,  Italian  purists,  and  other 
Delia  Cruscan  critics,  find  fault  with  Pecchio's  style 
as  being  not  strictly  ''  according  to  Cocker,"  but 
rather  careless.  They  complained  that  not  only 
many  of  his  constructions  and  turns  of  expression, 
but  also  a  good  many  of  his  words,  were  not  Tuscan, 
but  Lombard ;  with  some  deduction  this  may  be  true 
enough;  but  there  was  this  charm  in  Pecchio's 
writing — it  was  always  lively,  animated,  unaffected, 
perfectly  natural;  and  these  are  qualities  rarely  to 
be  found  in  any  modern  Italian  prose  writer,  and 
never  in  a  toscaneggiando  purist. 

These  men  will  keep  writing  in  the  tone  and  style 
of  the  Tre-Centisti,  or  the  Sei-Centisti ;  they  must 
cast  their  sentences  into  the  same  moulds,  they  must 
employ  the  same  formulas,  they  must  on  no  account 
employ  a  word  or  a  particle  except  strictly  according 
to  the  Cruscan  Academy  and  its  Dictionary;  they 
will  employ  hours  in  turning  and  furbishing  a  single 
period,  almost  sure  to  have  the  curse  of  pedantry, 
and  to  be  "  very  inanimate  and  very  round  "; 
altogether,  they  bestow  more  pains  and  more  thought 
on  the  way  of  saying  a  thing  than  on  the  thing  itself, 
or  the  matter  which  is  to  be  said. 

Hence,  chiefly,  the  weariness  and  dreariness  of 
most  modern  Italian  prose  works.     Except  Manzoni, 


CHAP.  XX]       HIS  LITERARY  TASTE  195 

Azeglio,  and  two  or  three  others,  who  among  them 
have  been  writing  Hvely,  unaffected,  natural  prose  ? 
Pecchio  never  wrote  verse  except  in  sport,  or  satire; 
he  had  no  ear  for  it,  nor  did  he  understand  its  rhythm, 
cadence,  or  construction.  To  him,  Itahan  poetry 
was  valuable  only  for  the  vivid  pictures,  the  feelings 
and  passions  it  might  contain ;  and  as  in  that  flowing 
facile  language  there  are  such  mountains  of  verse 
that  have  neither  pictures  nor  passions,  neither 
thought  nor  feeling,  that  are  instinct  with  nothing 
but  mellifluous,  ear-tickling  sound,  Pecchio  had  a 
fine,  hearty,  manful  contempt  for  much  of  his  native 
literature.  He  exceedingly  relished  Crabbe's  rhymed 
tales,  with  their  simplicity,  unmawkish  pathos,  stern 
positive  reality,  and  quiet  satire;  and  he  wished  he 
could  see  them  well  done  into  Italian  verse,  for  the 
benefit  of  his  countrymen.  He  would  have  gone 
great  lengths  to  drive  some  of  their  fiddling,  guitaring, 
singing,  and  other  branches  of  their  virtil  out  of  the 
Italians,  and  to  put  some  more  manly,  sterner 
qualities  in  their  place. 

Yet  never  being  dogmatical,  never  solemn  for  ten 
minutes  at  a  time,  he  would  often  laugh  and  say 
that  it  was  their  virtil  which  kept  the  balance  of 
trade  pretty  equal. 

"  We  buy  your  Sheffield  hardware  and  your 
Manchester  goods,  and  pay  the  prices;  we  send  you 
over  fiddlers  and  singers,  and  get  back  our  money  in 
the  salaries  you  pay  to  the  Paganini,  Pasta,  Grisi, 
Mahbran,  Rubini,  and  others;  and  thus  the  beam  of 
the  scales  is  kept  pretty  well  in  a  horizontal  line." 

Pecchio,  Charles  Knight,  and  G.  L.  Craik  were 
about  the  only  men  I  could  ever  patiently  listen  to 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  while  they  were  discoursing 
political  economy,  without  feeling  weariness,  head- 
ache, and  a  mortal  ennui. 

MacCulloch,  Spring-Rice,  Senior,  and  all  of  that 
school,  or  rather  schools,  choked  one  with  their 
eternal  "  quarter  of  wheat,"  and  their  still  drier  and 


194  COUNT  PECCHIO  [chap,  xx 

trymen  ought  not  to  forget,  or  to  let  perish.  His 
"  Life  of  Ugo  Foscolo  "  is  a  very  model  of  literary 
biography,  an  affecting  account  of  the  aberrations, 
sufferings,  and  enjoyments,  of  a  man  of  poetical 
temperament,  of  a  man  of  genius.  On  the  whole,  I 
think  I  prefer  it  to  Johnson's  "  Life  of  Savage  "; 
it  seems  to  me  more  real,  more  true,  and  more 
touching. 

Savage  was  but  a  mediocre  poet  at  best ;  compared 
as  a  poet  with  Foscolo,  he  sinks  into  insignificance; 
and  if  reference  be  had  to  classical  learning  and 
varied  accomplishments,  he  becomes,  in  the  com- 
parison, a  poor  creature  indeed  ! 

I  have  heard  Tuscans,  Italian  purists,  and  other 
Delia  Cruscan  critics,  find  fault  with  Pecchio's  style 
as  being  not  strictly  ''  according  to  Cocker,"  but 
rather  careless.  They  complained  that  not  only 
many  of  his  constructions  and  turns  of  expression, 
but  also  a  good  many  of  his  words,  were  not  Tuscan, 
but  Lombard ;  with  some  deduction  this  may  be  true 
enough;  but  there  was  this  charm  in  Pecchio's 
\\Titing — it  was  always  lively,  animated,  unaffected, 
perfectl}^  natural;  and  these  are  qualities  rarely  to 
be  found  in  any  modern  Italian  prose  writer,  and 
never  in  a  toscaneggiando  purist. 

These  men  will  keep  writing  in  the  tone  and  style 
of  the  Tre-Centisti,  or  the  Sei-Centisti ;  they  must 
cast  their  sentences  into  the  same  moulds,  they  must 
employ  the  same  formulas,  they  must  on  no  account 
employ  a  word  or  a  particle  except  strictly  according 
to  the  Cruscan  Academy  and  its  Dictionar}-;  they 
\\dll  employ  hours  in  turning  and  furbishing  a  single 
period,  almost  sure  to  have  the  curse  of  pedantry, 
and  to  be  "  very  inanimate  and  very  round  "; 
altogether,  they  bestow  more  pains  and  more  thought 
on  the  way  of  sa3dng  a  thing  than  on  the  thing  itself, 
or  the  matter  which  is  to  be  said. 

Hence,  chiefly,  the  weariness  and  dreariness  of 
most  modern  Italian  prose  works.     Except  Manzoni,  j^;. 


CHAP.  XX]        HIS  LITERARY  TASTE  i95 

Azeglio,  and  two  or  three  others,  who  among  them 
have  been  writing  Hvely,  unaffected,  natural  prose  ? 
Pecchio  never  wrote  verse  except  in  sport,  or  satire; 
he  had  no  ear  for  it,  nor  did  he  understand  its  rhythm, 
cadence,  or  construction.  To  him,  Itahan  poetry 
was  valuable  only  for  the  vivid  pictures,  the  feelings 
and  passions  it  might  contain ;  and  as  in  that  flowing 
facile  language  there  are  such  mountains  of  verse 
that  have  neither  pictures  nor  passions,  neither 
thought  nor  feehng,  that  are  instinct  with  nothing 
but  melhfluous,  ear-tickling  sound,  Pecchio  had  a 
fine,  hearty,  manful  contempt  for  much  of  his  native 
literature.  He  exceedingly  relished  Crabbe's  rhymed 
tales,  with  their  simpHcity,  unmawkish  pathos,  stern 
positive  reahty,  and  quiet  satire;  and  he  wished  he 
could  see  them  well  done  into  Itahan  verse,  for  the 
benefit  of  his  countrymen.  He  would  have  gone 
great  lengths  to  drive  some  of  their  fiddling,  guitaring, 
singing,  and  other  branches  of  their  virtii  out  of  the 
Itahans,  and  to  put  some  more  manly,  sterner 
qualities  in  their  place. 

Yet  never  being  dogmatical,  never  solemn  for  ten 
minutes  at  a  time,  he  would  often  laugh  and  say 
that  it  was  their  virtii  which  kept  the  balance  of 
trade  pretty  equal. 

"  We  buy  your  Sheffield  hardware  and  your 
Manchester  goods,  and  pay  the  prices;  we  send  you 
over  fiddlers  and  singers,  and  get  back  our  money  in 
the  salaries  you  pay  to  the  Paganini,  Pasta,  Grisi, 
Mahbran,  Rubini,  and  others;  and  thus  the  beam  of 
the  scales  is  kept  pretty  well  in  a  horizontal  line." 

Pecchio,  Charles  Knight,  and  G.  L.  Craik  were 
about  the  only  men  I  could  ever  patiently  listen  to 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  while  they  were  discoursing 
political  economy,  without  feeling  weariness,  head- 
ache, and  a  mortal  ennui. 

MacCuUoch,  Spring-Rice,  Senior,  and  all  of  that 
school,  or  rather  schools,  choked  one  with  their 
eternal  "  quarter  of  wheat,"  and  their  still  drier  and 


196  COUNT  PECCHIO  [chap,  xx 

huskier  "  averages,"  Mark  Lane  prices,  and  other 
statistical  returns,  most  of  which  were  "  cooked  " 
to  suit  some  particular  theory  or  other,  whilst  the 
rest  were  seldom  to  be  relied  upon  as  correct.  "  I 
tell  you  what  it  is,"  said  Pecchio,  "  your  English 
economists  have  stripped  off  skin  and  flesh,  they  have 
taken  the  nerves,  muscles,  and  sinews  out  of  the 
subject,  and  have  left  nothing  but  dry  bones,  nothing 
but  a  whitened,  harsh,  repulsive  skeleton,  with  limbs 
and  parts  badly  wired  together.  I  am  not  surpri^^ed 
that  ladies  and  most  young  people  should  be  disgusted 
with  it." 

These  philosophers  held  a  dining  club,  either  at 
Freemasons'  Tavern,  or  some  other  house  near 
Covent  Garden.  Yes,  they  dined  like  common 
mortals,  and,  like  true  Englishmen,  they  imbibed 
their  port  and  sherry.  MacCulloch,  the  greatest 
luminary  of  them  all,  was  a  jovial  fellow,  with  a  sort 
of  rough,  ready,  boisterous  Lowland  Scottish  humour, 
which  would  flow  pretty  copiously  as  he  approached 
his  second  bottle;  but  all  the  rest  of  that  Comitiva 
were  very  methodical,  slow,  formahzing,  positive,  and 
positively  dull  fellows. 

In  virtue  of  his  standing  on  the  Continent  as  a 
writer  on  political  economy  —  and  Pecchio  had 
written  and  published  a  good  deal  in  that  line — my 
animated,  vivacious,  and  witty  friend  was  invited 
by  MacCulloch  to  dine  with  these  economists .  Stewart 
Rose,  who  had  no  hking  for  any  of  the  sect,  said: 
''  Well,  Pecchio,  you  are  still  alive  !  How  did  you 
get  through  it  ?  Did  you  make  any  of  your  wicked 
jokes  ?  In  the  name  of  figs,  what  did  you  talk 
about  ?" 

''  Per  dirvi  il  vero  "  ("to  tell  you  the  truth  "),  said 
Pecchio,  "  we  talked,  discussed,  disputed,  jangled, 
and  harangued,  from  seven  o'clock  till  eleven,  to 
settle  the  one  question,  '  What  is  Rent  ?'  and  we 
separated  without  setthng  it  at  all."  ''  Bel  diverti- 
mento /"  quoth  Rose,  with  a  shiver  and  a  groan. 


li 


CHAP.  XX]  SYDNEY  SMITH  197 

Only  allow  poor  Pecchio  a  little  licence  and  margin 
for  the  introduction  of  a  French  or  Italian  word 
when  the  English  one  did  not  come  to  his  tongue, 
and  he  could  tell  a  humorous  or  witty  story,  or  make 
jokes  and  fun,  with  the  best  of  us.  In  this  way  he 
could  even  keep  pace  with  Sydney  Smith,  who  had 
been,  in  essential  matters,  his  good  warm  friend,  and 
to  whom  he  was  exceedingly  attached,  as  well  by 
gratitude  as  by  his  full  appreciation  and  admiration 
of  the  parson's  wit  and  humour,  and  genial  happy 
temperament.  In  an  evening  I  have  heard  Pecchio, 
in  a  society  where  people  did  not  laugh  at  bad  jests, 
raise  quite  as  many  hearty,  unmalicious,  innocent 
laughs,  as  the  Rev.  Sydney  himself.  He  was  the 
more  amusing  from  his  imperfect  pronunciation  of 
English. 

For  a  foreigner,  he  knew  our  literature  uncom- 
monly well;  he  read  our  poets  from  Chaucer  to 
Shakespeare  and  Spenser,  and  from  them  down  to 
Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  and  Tennyson;  but  not 
beginning  to  talk  English,  nor  to  reside  with  English 
people,  until  he  was  somewhat  advanced  in  life,  he 
never  got  over  some  of  our  difficult  articulations, 
and  never  got  rid  of  his  native  Italian  pronunciation 
of  the  vowels.  With  him,  the  article  "  the  "  was 
always  "  de  ";  the  pronoun  ''  this,"  "  dis  "  to  the 
end.  The  vowel  "  i  "  was  always  "  ee,"  as  in  Italian. 
Thus  with  Pecchio,  "  ship  "  was  "  sheep,"  ''  slip  " 
was  "  sleep,"  and  so  on.  One  morning,  when  we  were 
riding  on  the  Brighton  Downs,  he  said:  "To-day 
dare  are  many  sheeps  in  de  sea."  "  Sorry  for  it," 
said  Rose,  "  the  poor  creatures  will  get  drowned." 
But  in  these  particulars  there  was  no  correcting  our 
accomplished  Lombard. 

Through  Sydney  Sm.ith,  Sir  James  Mackintosh, 
Lord  Holland,  Mr.  Hallam,  dear  Rose,  **  la  Rosa 
senza  spina,''  as  he  named  him,  through  old  Sam 
Rogers,  the  Harleys  and  others,  he  knew  more  or 
less  intimately  nearly  every  man,  and  woman  too, 


198  COUNT  PECCHIO  [chap,  xx 

that  was  worth  knowing  in  England;  and  having  a 
thoroughly  English  wife,  I  believe  he  loved  our 
society,  in  spite  of  its  chilliness  and  drawbacks, 
better  than  that  of  any  other  nation.  He  had  com- 
paratively very  few  friends  or  acquaintances  in 
France.  Of  a  few  Spaniards  he  was  very  fond:  as 
of  Martinez  de  la  Rosa,  the  Duke  of  Rivas,  Bardaxi 
the  diplomatist,  and  the  Canon  Del  Riego,  brother 
to  the  unfortunate  General  of  that  name.  1^ 

Whenever  he  made  any  stay  in  London,  honest, 
impetuous,  peppery  old  Riego,  a  great  collector  of 
black-letter  and  of  all  manner  of  old  books,  and  a 
great  original  in  every  way,  was  a  good  deal  with 
him ;  and  very  amusing  it  was  to  hear  their  frequent 
disputes,  and  to  see  their  animated  gesticulations, 
which  would  often  bring  all  eyes  upon  them  at  a  party 
or  out  in  the  streets,  for  the  old  Canon  cared  not 
where  he  held  forth,  moving  his  arms  like  the  sails 
of  a  windmill. 

He  was  nearly  always  "  stiff  in  opinion,  obstinately 
wrong";  but  he  was  so  single-minded,  so  honest- 
hearted,  so  abounding  in  the  sweet  charities  of  human 
nature.  Moreover,  he  was  a  wonderful  specimen  of 
Spanish  sobriety  of  life  and  contentment  with  little; 
he  had  nothing  but  a  small  EngUsh  stipend  or  pension 
secured  to  him  by  the  Duke  of  Wellington;  but  on 
this  he  not  only  lodged,  fed,  and  clothed  himself,  but 
he  also  contrived  to  buy  many  books,  and  to  give 
away  money  in  alms.  In  politics,  the  poor  deprived 
Spanish  Canon  was  as  ignorant,  passionate,  and 
insane  as  the  rest  of  them,  or  as  all  the  Spanish 
Liberals  I  have  chanced  to  know,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Martinez  de  la  Rosa  and  three  or  four 
others. 

At  Madrid,  in  1822,  Pecchio  had  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  that  shallow  coxcomb,  that  dull 
Neapolitan,  that  blundering  conspirator  and  arrant 
traitor.  General  Guglielmo  Pepe,  and  had  taken  a 
fair  and   correct   measurement  of  his  intellect   and 


CHAP.  XX]  GENERAL  PEPE  199 

abilities.  "  I  was  nearly  three  months  with  him," 
said  Pecchio,  "  and  every  day  he  began  to  tell  me 
how  his  Carbonaro  revolution  had  failed. 

"  You  know  the  sonorous  mode  of  his  countr3^  He 
always  solemnly  and  loudly  started  thus :  '  Tre  sono 
le  cause  per  Le  quale  la  nostra  Rivoluzione  non  sia 
riuscita  come  doveva,  umananiente  parlandoy  riuscire.^ 

"  Well/'  continued  Pecchio,  "  so  long-winded  was 
he,  and  so  rambling,  excursive,  and  disconnected, 
that  he  never,  in  all  that  time,  got  over  '  cause  one,' 
or  entered  upon  '  cause  two.'  Eleven  years  have 
passed  since  then;  he  has  been  hammering  at  his 
*  three  causes  '  ever  since,  or  whenever  he  has  been 
able  to  find  listeners;  he  is  discussing  them  now  at 
Brussels,  and  yet  I  would  venture  to  say  that  he 
has  never  got  to  the  end  of  his  '  third  cause.'  Dulness 
is  not  a  characteristic  or  national  fault  with  the 
Neapolitans — sotto  quel  cielo  non  nascono  sciocchi ! 
In  the  masses,  you  find  plenty  of  ignorance,  but  you 
don't  find  fools  or  naturals.  Pepe  is  a  rarity,  quite 
a  curiosity." 

"  Pecchio,"  said  I,  'M  know  him  well.  I  knew 
him  before  he  headed  the  secret  societies  and  led  the 
revolution,  and  when,  like  another  Lafayette,  he 
was  perpetually  capering  about  the  Chiaja,  the  camps 
and  the  streets  of  Naples,  with  his  tail  of  National 
Guards ;  but  it  is  not  I  that  would  vote  for  preserving 
his  body  in  a  glass  case  I" 

Returning  from  his  Philhellenic  financial  mission 
to  revolutionized  Greece — whither  he  was  accompanied 
by  Conte  Pietro  Gamba,  brother  to  Lord  Byron's 
Contessa  Guiccioli,  one  of  the  greatest  gourmandizers 
that  ever  ate  riso,  polenta,  fricassee,  or  roast  beef, 
and  where  he  behaved  like  a  thoroughly  honest  man 
among  a  set  of  stock-jobbers  and  thieves,  and  like 
a  shrewd,  sensible,  practical  man  among  a  set  of 
madmen  or  dreamers  and  donkeys  like  Trelawny, 
or  Colonel  the  Hon.  Leicester  Stanhope — poor  Pecchio 
had  a  dreadful  passage,  was  near  being  drowned  at 


200  COUNT  PECCHIO  [chap,  xx 

sea,  and  was  after  all  landed,  not  in  England,  but  on 
the  coast  of  Ireland. 

In  Dublin  he  fell  in  with  Lady  Morgan,  to  whom 
his  revolutionary  and  anti-Austrian  politics  were 
introduction  and  recommendation  enough.  He  found 
her  little  leddyship  already  surrounded  by  a  troop 
of  Italian,  Spanish,  and  other  refugees;  gentlemen 
who  had  found  the  London  market  overstocked  with 
their  commodity,  and  who  had  come  over  to  the 
Green  Island  with  a  comfortable  confidence  in  Irish 
credulity,  warm-heartedness,  and  hospitality.  I  be- 
lieve that  their  expectations  were  not  disappointed. 
Her  ladyship,  and  her  husband,  the  accoucheur ,  could 
not  do  much,  at  home,  in  the  hospitality  line;  but 
then  she  could  take  them  with  her  to  the  dinners, 
evening  parties,  and  suppers  given  by  other  people, 
and  she  never  went  anywhere  without  being  attended 
by  a  long  train  of  unfortunate,  expatriated  patriots. 

The  French  and  Austrian  consuls  used  to  call  them 
"  les  pendables  de  Mi  Ledi  Morgan  ";  ''  and,"  said 
Pecchio,  "  putting  politics  out  of  the  question,  and 
speaking  the  plain  truth,  I  am  rather  afraid  that 
several  of  them  had  deserved  hanging,  before  they 
fled  from  their  own  countries.  At  all  events,  every 
one  of  them  was  metaphorically  marked  with  the 
rope — marcato  con  la  corda — for  they  had  all  been 
sentenced  in  contumacia.^' 

I  was  once  at  a  party  at  Sablonieres,  in  Leicester 
Square,  with  Pecchio  and  Panizzi;  there  were  eight 
others,  Italians  or  Spaniards.  I  made  the  eleventh, 
and  out  of  that  number  I  was  the  only  one  who  had 
not  been  condemned  to  be  hanged  or  to  be  im- 
prisoned for  life. 

There  was  something  dramatic  or  poetical  in  this; 
but  I  did  not  feel  myself  much  lowered  by  being  an 
exception. 

The  Austrians  hanged  none.  If  Pecchio  had  been 
caught,  he  could  not  have  survived  one  winter  of 
Spielberg.     Count    Gonfaloniere,    a    much    robuster 


CHAP.  XX]         GIUSEPPE  MAZZINI  201 

person,  came  out  of  that  captivity  a  martyr  to 
rheumatism  and  other  pains.  Maroncelli,  who  suf- 
fered there  the  amputation  of  a  leg,  afterwards  went 
to  America,  and  turned  out  no  better  than  a  marion- 
ciello — which  is  Neapohtan  for  "  a  dirty  Uttle  rogue." 

Poor  Pelhco  hved  many  years  hke  a  penitent 
Christian,  and  then  died  hke  a  saint,  hooted  and 
execrated  by  all  the  Liberals  of  Italy,  because  he 
would  not  attack  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  the  Pope, 
and  all  the  Princes  of  the  Peninsula,  nor  enter  again 
into  any  conspiracy. 

In  1848,  when  I  was  last  at  Turin,  where  he  long 
resided,  and  which  might  almost  be  called  his  native 
place,  we  could  not  obtain  at  the  booksellers'  a  copy 
of  his  tragedy  "  Francesca  di  Rimini,''  or  of  any  of 
his  beautiful  verses.  It  would  hardly  have  been  safe 
to  ask  for  "  Le  mie  Prigioni/'  which  they  were  calling 
*'  the  production  of  a  vile,  canting  Jesuit."  The 
ultra-Liberals  were  then  in  the  ascendant,  and  they 
and  their  potential  clubs  had  laid  his  works  under 
interdict,  and  pronounced  anathema  maranatha  upon 
the  best  poet  Piedmont  has  ever  produced. 

It  was  not  in  this  way  that  Pellico  was  judged  by 
Pecchio,  who  admired  his  genius,  was  proud  of  his 
friendship,  and  spoke  of  him,  to  the  last,  with  respect, 
tenderness,  and  affection. 


MAZZINI 

This  revolutionist,  who  has  been  the  cause  of  sending 
many  men  to  the  grave,  has,  like  nearly  every  Italian 
I  have  known,  a  horror  of  death,  and  of  everything 
strongly  reminding  him  of  mortality. 

One  morning,  when  landlady  and  servant  were  out, 
he  answered  to  a  knock,  opened  the  street  door, 
and  shrank  back  into  the  passage  in  affright,  for 
two  undertaker's  men,  bearing  an  immense  coffin, 
stood  bolt  before  him. 


202  MAZZINI  [chap.  XX 

"What  for  you  bring  dat  to  dis  house?"  he 
exclaimed;  "here  are  no  deads!"  The  fellows 
had  mistaken  the  number;  the  coffin  was  for  poor 
Ned  Howard,  the  sea-novelist,  who  lived  in  the  same 
street  or  terrace,  somewhere  in  the  Sloane  Street 
district,  but  a  door  to  two  higher  up,  or  lower  down. 
As  Ned  had  been  an  enormous  eater  as  well  as  a 
copious  drinker,  he  had  grown  enormously  fat,  and 
had  been  carried  off  by  apoplexy.  Mazzini,  seeing 
the  size  of  the  coffin,  might  very  well  have  thought 
it  was  intended  for  two  or  more  single  gentlemen. 
Hence  his  Italian  use  of  the  inadmissible  English 
plural,  "  deads."  His  vernacular,  which  he  put  into 
English,  would  have  been  "  Qui  non  vi  sono  morti." 
His  landlady  or  servant  came  to  the  rescue,  found 
the  Tribune  of  the  People,  the  man  w^ho  talks  of 
"  Dio  e  popolo,"  very  pale,  and  sent  poor  Ned's 
coffin  to  its  proper  destination. 

I  always  thought  that  poor  "  Rattlin  the  Reefer  " 
would  not  have  ended  so  soon,  nor  have  made  so  bad 
an  end,  if  his  old  shipmate  and  then  patron.  Captain 
Marryat,  had  treated  him  more  considerately  and 
liberally,  and  had  set  him  a  better  example  in  the 
late  hours  of  night,  and  in  one  or  two  other  particulars. 

I  have  had  reason  to  believe  the  fact,  of  which  the 
poor  novelist  was  very  proud,  that  he  was  a  natural 
son  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  the  "  Black  Surrey," 
of  Whiggish,  parliamentary  celebrity.  Poor  Ned 
was  not  very  aristocratic  in  manners  or  in  personal 
appearance,  but  no  more  was  his  reputed  father, 
His  Grace  of  Norfolk;  at  least,  not  for  many  a  long 
year  before  he  filled  a  coffin  big  enough  for  "  deads." 
But  poor  Ned,  though  an  imitator  and  almost  a 
copyist  of  Marryat  his  chief,  had  considerable  ability 
and  verve,  as  his  novels  will  show.  He  had  gone 
through  a  considerable  variety  of  adventures.  Before 
starting  as  a  professional  litterateur,  he  had  been  in 
the  Navy ;  he  had  been  a  partner  or  shareholder  in 
a    gunpowder    manufactory,    which    blew    up    and 


CHAP.  XX]        COUNT  NIEMCEWITZ  203 

reduced  him  almost  to  beggary;  and  he  had  been  an 
usher  in  a  boarding-school  at  Beech  Hill,  Essex, 
where  he  made  love  to  Miss  W.,  one  of  his  master's 
daughters,  whom  he  married.  He  had  adventures 
after  this;  his  first  wife  died,  and  left  him  an  only 
child,  a  daughter,  and  not  very  long  afterwards  he 
married  another  Miss  W.,  no  relation  to  his  former 
wife,  but  the  very  pretty  daughter  of  a  revolutionary 
scribbler  for  an  infamous  weekly  newspaper. 


COUNT  NIEMCEWITZ 

In  my  time,  I  have  known  and  much  liked  many 
Poles,  gentlemen  as  well  as  ladies,  but  I  must  con- 
fess that  I  have  never  had  confidence  in,  or  much 
sympathy  for,  Polish  refugee  patriots.  With  this  old 
soldier,  this  companion  in  arms  of  Kosciusko,  this 
man  of  letters,  feeling,  and  imagination,  I  became 
rather  intimate  in  1831-32. 

Lord  Dover,  ultra- Whiggish  as  he  then  was,  used 
to  say  that  the  poor  old  Count  was  the  only  very 
interesting  man  that  the  Warsaw  revolution  of  1830 
had  thrown  on  our  shore.  With  me,  he  did  not 
talk  of  present  or  passing  politics,  but  of  the  future 
destinies  of  the  Slav  race,  with  re-constructed  Poland 
at  its  head. 

Panslavism,  though  taken  as  a  novelty  in  1847-48, 
is  far  from  being  one.  As  a  young  man  I  could  not 
dispute  with  one  who  was  almost  an  octogenarian ; 
and  I  hope  I  had  too  much  kindness  of  heart  ever 
to  attempt  to  disturb  the  visions  which  solaced  the 
aged  and  amiable  exile.  Though  not  left  to  want, 
he  was  poor,  and  debarred  from  many  of  the  comforts 
to  which  he  had  been  accustomed  at  home.  Like 
myself,  he  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  house  of 
the  Hon.  Mrs.  Buchanan,  aunt  to  the  present  Lord 
Elibank. 

Late  one  night,  one  stormy  winter  night,  when  no 


204  COUNT  NIEMCEWITZ        [chap,  xx 

vehicle  could  be  procured  in  the  vicinity,  the  Count 
and  I  walked  away  together  with  umbrellas,  which 
neither  of  us  knew  how  to  use,  or  how  to  carry  in  a 
storm  of  \\dnd.  On  coming  out  into  Piccadilly,  the 
old  man  stopped  at  the  sheltering  corner  of  a  street, 
and  said  with  a  tone  that  went  to  my  heart,  "  This 
is  rather  too  hard  !  Here  am  I  trudging  through  rain 
and  sleet,  at  this  time  of  night,  while  Russians  are 
riding  in  my  carriage  at  Warsaw,  et  a  mon  age  on  n'est 
plus  jeune  ni  fort.''  I  saw  him  to  the  door  of  the 
house  where  he  lodged,  and  there  I  left  him,  sincerely 
mourning  over  the  woes  brought  about  by  ill-con- 
sidered revolutions. 

Some  Polish  refugees  were  little  better  than  im- 
postors, or  idle  beggars,  and  became  a  downright 
nuisance.  Lord  Dudley  Stewart,  whom  I  had  known 
in  the  da3"s  of  his  youth  when  he  was  living  with 
his  mother,  the  Marchioness  of  Bute,  at  Naples, 
and  who  afterwards  became  entirely  possessed  by 
Polomania,  used  to  stock  the  Reading  Room  at  the 
British  Museum  with  them,  by  giving  them  intro- 
ductory or  recommendatory  letters  to  good-natured 
old  Sir  Henrv  Ellis,  at  that  time  Chief  Librarian. 
Now,  unfortunately  for  me,  for  my  friend  Craik 
and  others  who  had  work  to  do  and  neither  time 
nor  much  money  to  spare,  too  many  of  these  patriots 
made  the  place  a  begging-beat,  and  begged  in  it 
importunately. 

One  morning,  a  tall,  lank,  sallow,  rather  ferocious- 
looking  man,  wrapped  up  in  a  camlet  cloak,  vexed 
me  with  a  direfully  long  tale  of  woe  and  want,  and  he 
ended  it  by  saying,  "  Monsieur y  je  n'ai  ni  patrie,  ni 
pas  meme  une  chemise  f'  and  by  opening  the  folds  of 
his  cover-all  to  certify  the  truth  of  the  last  assertion. 
Though  patronized  by  Lord  Dudley  and  others, 
many  of  these  Polish  refugees  were  common,  unedu- 
cated men  who  had  been  artisans  in  their  own  country, 
and  who  might  have  found  work  at  their  several 
trades  in  England  if  they  had  been  so  inclined.     But 


CHAP,  xx]  POLISH  REFUGEES  205 

they  were  fit  or  disposed  only  for  fighting  or  barricade- 
making.  Except  some  four  or  five  who  entered  into 
the  employment  of  Mr.  Clowes  the  great  printer,  as 
compositors  or  pressmen,  I  never  knew  any  of  them 
turn  their  hands  to  quiet,  honest  industry,  or  to  any- 
thing that  was  useful.  Next  to  the  Spaniards,  the 
most  helpless  of  the  refugees  with  which  I  have  known 
London  to  swarm  were  certainly  the  Poles.  But  the 
Spaniards  were  exceedingly  sober  and  abstemious, 
whereas  the  Pole  dearly  loved  his  glass  and  a  bellyful. 
What  with  their  singing,  fiddling,  and  guitaring,  paint- 
ing and  modelling,  the  Italian  refugee  patriots  did  the 
best;  I  have  rarely  known  one  of  them  to  be  in  want. 
I  have  known  many  of  them  to  be  in  a  far  higher  state 
of  prosperity  than  they  had  ever  known  in  their  own 
country. 


75 


CHAPTER  XXI 

CARDINAL    RUFFO 

I  KNEW,  in  his  old  age,  this  chief  and  leader  of 
one  of  the  most  sanguinary  counter-revolutions 
recorded  in  modern  history,  that  of  Naples  in 
1 799  J  ^nd  I  have  seldom  known  a  milder  or  more 
amiable  old  gentleman.  I  first  met  him  at  the 
house  of  his  niece,  my  very  kind  and  hospitable 
friend,  the  Duchessa  di  Campomele,  daughter  of 
Don  G.  Ruffo,  Prince  of  Scilla.  I  forget  the  date, 
but  it  must  have  been  between  1819  and  1821. 
The  Cardinal  was  very  animated,  affable,  and  com- 
municative; but  he  did  not  like  to  talk  about  the 
**  Novanta  Nove  " — still  words  of  terror  in  Neapolitan 
ears — and  he  would  seldom  listen  to  any  reference 
to  that  disastrous  period,  or  to  his  own  exploits. 
He  was  very  attentive  and  even  gallant  to  the  ladies, 
and  he  appeared  to  be  fond  of  children  and  young 
people. 

At  this  time  I  was  but  a  youth  myself,  and  no 
doubt  on  this  account  he  was  the  more  easy  and 
amiable  with  me.  Once,  and  only  once,  I  succeeded 
in  drawing  him  out,  to  speak  of  his  march  through 
the  Calabrias,  his  rapid  advance  on  Naples,  and  the 
combats  and  horrors  that  followed.  It  will  be  re- 
membered how  the  French  Republicans  had  invaded 
the  kingdom;  how,  being  joined  by  many  Neapolitans 
of  the  capital,  and  of  some  of  the  larger  provincial 
towns,  they  had  set  up  a  Republic  under  the  ridiculous 
name  of  ''  Repubhlica  Partenopea/^  and  how  old 
King  Ferdinand  and  his  Court  had  fled  to  Sicily  in 

206 


CHAP,  xxi]    HIS  CAMPAIGN   IN  CALABRIA     207 

Lord  Nelson's  ships.  The  reverses  the  French  were 
sustaining  at  the  hands  of  Suwarrofif  and  his  Russians 
in  the  north  of  Italy,  obliged  their  General,  Mac- 
Donald,  to  quit  the  Neapolitan  territories  with  the 
far  greater  part  of  his  Army. 

General  Championnet  was  left  behind  with  only 
a  few  thousand  French  troops,  but  the  Republicans 
of  Naples  had  raised  an  army,  and  they  and  Cham- 
pionnet held  between  them  all  the  castles  and  other 
fortresses.  It  was  the  Queen — Caroline  of  Austria, 
sister  of  the  unfortunate  Marie  Antoinette,  Queen  of 
France — the  Cardinal,  and  a  Calabrian  gamekeeper, 
an  enthusiastic  Royalist  and  a  most  devoted, 
daring  fellow,  who  first  conceived  the  notion  of 
recovering  possession  of  the  Continental  dominions, 
b}^  collecting  an  irregular  volunteer  army  in  the 
Calabrias. 

The  Cardinal,  notwithstanding  his  priestly  office, 
his  high  rank  in  the  Church,  his  total  inexperience 
of  military  affairs,  undertook  to  head  and  conduct 
this  wild  levee  en  masse.  With  very  little  money, 
with  a  few  red  cockades,  and  two  or  three  white 
flags,  impressed  with  the  royal  arms  of  the  Neapolitan 
Bourbons,  he  crossed  the  Straits  of  Messina,  and 
landed  near  to  Scilla. 

Here  was  his  ancestral  castle,  and  here  his  mere 
name  carried  immense  weight.  His  brother,  the 
Prince,  a  quiet,  indolent  old  gentleman,  very  sub- 
missive to  events  and  circumstances,  was,  as  usual, 
living  in  the  city  of  Naples  with  his  family;  but  he, 
like  many  of  his  forefathers,  had  been  a  kind  and 
indulgent  master,  and  was  much  beloved  by  his 
tenants  and  vassals. 

Though  much  broken  in  upon,  a  quarter  of  a 
century  before  this  period,  by  the  reforming  Minister, 
the  Marchese  Tannucci,  the  feudal  system  was  not 
yet  abrogated,  and  the  country  people  still  prided 
themselves  on  the  greatness  or  antiquity  of  their 
several   lords   and   still   called   themselves,   as    they 


2o8  CARDINAL  RUFFO         [chap,  xxi 

were  called  by  others,  their  vassals,  a  usage  not 
altogether  obsolete  in  some  parts  of  the  country  even 
now.  In  his  youth  the  Cardinal  had  lived  a  good  deal 
at  the  old  castle,  and  among  these  primitive,  wild, 
fierce,  but  warm-hearted  people.  Now,  so  soon  as 
he  proclaimed  the  object  of  his  com.ing,  his  brother's 
vassals  rushed  to  him,  almost  to  a  man,  and  most 
of  these  mountaineers  and  sportsmen  had  their 
guns,  their  couteaux  de  chasse,  or  other  weapons. 
From  Scilla,  the  summons  to  arms  flew  across  the 
neighbouring  mountains  and  glens  like  the  old  war- 
signal  of  the  Highlanders ;  and  in  the  space  of  eight- 
and-forty  hours,  the  Cardinal  found  himself  sur- 
rounded by  a  numerically  imposing  force.  The 
red  cockades,  the  symbols  of  ardent  loyalty  to  the 
Bourbon,  were  distributed,  the  white  banners  were 
unfurled  amidst  the  most  enthusiastic  demonstrations, 
and  when  the  Cardinal  had  bestowed  on  his  volunteers 
the  imposing  name  of  the  *'  Army  of  the  Holy 
Faith  "  ("  Armata  della  Santa  Fede  "),  and  raised 
the  rallying  cry,  '*  Viva  il  Re  Nostra  !  Viva  la  Santa 
Fede!''  the  wild  Calabrians  were  transported  out 
of  their  senses,  and  demanded  to  be  led  at  once 
against  the  detestable  French  and  the  Neapolitan 
traitors  to  their  King  and  country. 

The  Prince  of  the  Church  did  not  keep  them  waiting. 
As  he  advanced  rapidly  towards  the  doomed  capital, 
he  was  joined  by  more  and  more  enthusiastic  partisans. 
Every  town,  every  village  or  hamlet,  every  hillside 
and  every  valley,  contributed  something  to  his 
forces.  Among  these  fellows  were  a  good  many 
brigands  and  cut-throats.  It  was  not  a  time  to  be 
particular,  nor  could  the  Cardinal  have  succeeded 
in  purging  or  purifying  his  Army  of  the  Faith,  if 
he  had  tried  ever  so  long  or  ever  so  hard  to  do  it. 
The  torrent  rolled  rapidly  onward,  nor  did  it  cease 
to  swell  when  the  Calabrias  and  the  Province  of 
Salerno  were  left  in  the  rear,  and  when  the  Molise 
was  entered. 


CHAP,  xxi]      HIS  CAREER  IN  CALABRIA        209 

*  Men  poured,  rushed  down  from  their  mountainous 
regions,  hke  their  own  fiumazzi  or  torrents  in  winter- 
time; and  all  shouting  "  Death  to  the  Republicans  ! 
Death  to  all  Jacobins  !  Long  live  Ferdinand  our 
King  !  Long  live  the  Holy  Faith  !"  Attired  in 
pontificalibus y  with  a  cross  of  gold  upon  his  breast, 
a  huge  crucifix  before  him,  and  a  numerous  staff 
around  him,  composed  chiefly  of  priests,  monks, 
and  brigand  chiefs,  the  Cardinal  rode  at  the  head  of 
this  wild,  disorderly,  multitudinous  array.  Wherever 
they  halted,  they  planted,  not  trees  of  Liberty,  like 
the  Republicans,  but  crosses  and  crucifixes;  masses, 
matins,  and  vespers  were  regularly  performed,  and 
the  multitude  attended  to  them  with  every  possible 
show  of  devotion  and  contrition.  Yet  Ruifo  soon 
found  that  he  could  not  control  these  masses,  that 
he  could  not  prevent  their  plundering  and  massacring, 
that  he  had  made  and  armed  a  monster  that  was 
too  much  for  him  ! 

He  could  not  recede,  he  could  not  retrace  his 
steps,  he  could  not  unmake  the  monster,  he  could 
not  steal  away  and  leave  it ;  his  heart  and  soul  were 
in  the  cause — truly  the  cause  of  Altar  and  Throne 
— and,  with  every  prospect  of  success,  he  went 
on  with  his  masses,  attempting,  when  and  where 
possible,  to  check  their  furor  cieco,  to  moderate 
their  excesses.  It  is  not  to  be  overlooked  that  the 
armed  Neapolitan  Republicans,  and  some  of  the 
French  soldiers  as  well,  had  been,  for  many  months 
previously,  committing  similar  atrocities  upon  the 
Royalists.  Ettore  Carafa,  a  Neapolitan  nobleman 
of  very  ancient  lineage,  who  had  gone  crazed  and 
turned  democrat,  who  had  adopted  some  of  the 
bloodiest  maxims  of  Murat,  Robespierre,  and  St. 
Just,  led  into  Capitanata  and  Apulia  a  republican 
corps  d'armee  that  wasted  those  regions  with  fire 
and  sword,  and  to  the  shibboleth  of  "  Liberia, 
Ugualitd,   e    Fraternitd/'    left    not    unperpetrated    a 

*  From  this  sentence  to  the  end,  in  C.  M.'s  handwriting. 


2IO  CARDINAL  RUFFO  [chap,  xxi 

single  crime  in  the  long,  black  catalogue  of  human 
wickedness  and  depravity.  So  long  after  the  events 
as  1816,  when  I  first  travelled  through  these  interest- 
ing provinces,  I  found,  in  villages  and  towns  and  fair 
old  cities,  in  ruins,  in  desecrated,  unroofed  churches, 
and  smoke-blackened  walls  and  skeletons  of  houses, 
many  a  mournful,  ghastly  proof  of  this  republican 
rabbia,  and  saw  people  shudder  and  turn  pale  at 
mention  of  the  name  of  Ettore  Carafa.  At  a  subse- 
quent period,  I  knew  rather  intimately  some  of  these 
Carafas,  or  Carafe :  they  dated  their  nobility  from  the 
first  Crusades;  they  had  been  Signori  (Lords  or 
Princes)  of  Maddaloni,  of  Andria,  of  Ruvo,  and  of 
many  other  extensive  fiefs  and  castles;  they  were 
now,  one  and  all,  in  poverty  and  humihation,  little 
short  of  being  pezzenti,  or  penniless,  like  all  the  rest 
of  the  true,  ancient  aristocracy  of  the  Kingdom. 

The  Cavaher,  Don  N.  Carafa,  the  musical  genius, 
the  composer  of  "  Gabriella  di  Vergi  "  and  of  other 
operas  and  of  very  many  separate  pieces,  who  has 
been  so  long  settled,  and  so  widely  known,  at  Paris, 
was  of  this  stock.  Conspicuous  in  the  personnel  of 
Ruffo's  staff  were  those  famous  robbers  Mammone, 
Sciarpa,  and  Decesari,  and  that  still  more  famous 
brigand,  Fra  Diavolo,  or  Friar  Devil,  and  each  of 
these  chiefs  was  attended  by  his  band.  This  may 
account  for  a  good  deal  of  the  evil  committed. 
These  were  fellows  who  would  not  stick  at  trifles, 
nor  hesitate  at  gigantic  sins;  but  that  the  Cardinal 
himself  ever  ordered  pillage,  sack,  and  plunder,  is 
what  I  cannot  credit,  in  spite  of  the  contrary  assertions 
of  Carlo  Botta,  General  Colletta,  W.  Pepe,  and  four- 
score other  writers  of  the  Liberal  school.  I  have, 
in  my  early  days,  spoken  and  associated  with  hundreds 
of  both  sexes  and  of  both  parties,  who  were  eye  or 
ear  witnesses  of  what  was  done  in  the  dreadful 
"  Novanta  Move,''  or  this  counter-revolution,  and 
all  admitted  that  Ruffo  did  all  that  mortal  man  could 
do  to  stop  the  effusion  of  blood.     "  I  never  thought 


CHAP.  XXI]      A  TERRIBLE  VENDETTA  211 

much  of  the  niche  I  am  to  occupy  in  history,"  said 
he  to  me,  "  but  I  would  observe  that  I  was,  and,  as 
I  hope,  still  am,  a  gentleman  and  sincere  Christian 
{galantuomo  e  sincero  cristiano))  as  such,  I  could 
not  do  what  has  been  imputed  to  me;  and  as  such 
I  declare  that  I  did  it  not.  You  have  travelled 
through  the  Calabrias  and  all  over  the  Kingdom ; 
you  have  lived  long  among  our  people,  and  know 
their  hot  blood  {sangue  caldo)  and  how  prone  they 
are  to  revenge  {la  vendetta).  Well,  the  affair  of 
Ninety-Nine  was  a  vendetta ;  and,  in  good  part, 
nothing  more. 

"  It  was  a  vendetta  not  confined  to  the  ulcerated 
heart  of  Queen  Caroline,  and  the  hearts  of  her  friends 
and  courtiers  !  Far  from  that  1  It  was  a  vendetta 
existing  and  raging  throughout  the  popular,  rural 
body,  and  in  the  heart  of  wellnigh  every  Neapolitan 
that  was  not  a  Jacobin  and  Revolutionist.  Hundreds 
of  those  who  joined  me  had  had  their  relatives  or 
friends  massacred,  their  wives  or  daughters  dis- 
honoured by  the  horde  of  Ettore  Carafa.  Cruelty 
begets  cruelty;  let  blood-letting  once  begin,  and 
people  will  get  an  appetite  for  blood  !  I  know  this, 
young  man,  and  many  a  time  then,  and  many  more 
times  since,  have  I  mourned  over  it  !  May  God  in 
His  mercy  keep  us  from  such  civil  wars,  from  such 
revolutions  and  counter-revolutions  and  revolutions 
again  !  You,  in  England,  have  happily  escaped, 
but  see  w^hat  these  things  have  done  in  this  Kingdom, 
in  the  whole  of  Italy,  in  nearly  the  whole  of  Europe  ! 
And,  everywhere,  have  they  not  left  vendette  behind 
them  ?" 

I  am  not  writing  the  history  of  Cardinal  Ruffo's 
campaign.  I  wish  I  had  sufficient  materials  at  hand, 
for  it  has  never  been  well  or  fairly  or  dispassionately 
written.  In  the  accepted  accounts  of  Botta,  CoUetta, 
Vincenzo  Cuoco,  etc.,  there  are  innumerable  errors 
and  intentional  misstatements  of  facts.  The  Cardinal 
overcame  every  obstacle,  beating  his  enemies  wherever 


212  CARDINAL  RUFFO         [chap,  xxi 

he  met  them,  and  fearlessly  and  frankly  exposing 
himself  under  the  hottest  fire.  When  not  far  from 
the  city  of  Naples,  he  diverged  to  the  right,  crossed 
the  Apennines,  and  fell,  d  plomb,  on  the  vast  plains 
of  Apulia,  where  Carafa  and  his  bands  had  done 
such  mischief.  Here,  with  admirable  rapidity,  he 
drove  the  Republicans  from  one  town  after  the  other, 
and  pulled  down  the  tricolour  and  re-erected  the 
drapeau  blanc  in  every  fortress  and  position  of 
importance. 

He  then  turned  sharp  round  upon  the  capital, 
tumbled  over  the  Republicans  in  one  of  its  suburbs, 
at  the  Bridge  of  the  Maddalena,  and  entered  the 
city,  where  all  the  lazzaroni,  and  every  mian  belong- 
ing to  what  was  strictly  il  basso  popolo  joined  him, 
and  actively  and  savagely  co-operated  with  his 
Calabrians.  And  now  it  was  that  vendetta  had  an 
orgy  and  a  glut,  that  unspeakable  horrors  were 
committed  on  the  Jacobins,  and  that  the  spontaneous 
massacres  performed  by  the  Calabrians,  lazzaroni, 
and  other  canaglia,  were  followed  up  by  too  many — 
far  too  many — judicial  executions  on  the  scaffold. 

Naples  had  a  remarkable  crop  of  learning,  talent, 
ingenuity,  and  even  genius,  in  the  course  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  About  the  last  of  it  perished 
here,  on  the  block,  and  the  soil  has  never  since  sent 
forth  such  shoots  and  borne  such  a  harvest;  though, 
most  assuredly,  natural  quickness,  aptitude,  and 
natural  talent  are  not,  and  have  not  been,  since  the 
"  Ninety-Nine,"  at  all  w^anting. 

In  less  than  seven  3^ears,  King  Ferdinand  w^as  again 
in  flight  for  Sicily,  and  Cardinal  Ruffo  with  him. 
Marshal  Massena,  with  an  overwhelming  French 
army,  took  possession  of  Naples,  and — the  Republican 
democratic  "  dodge  "  being  over — Europe  was  told 
that  the  reign  of  the  Bourbons  of  Naples  was  no  more, 
and  that  Joseph  Bonaparte,  brother  to  the  Emperor 
of  the  French,  was  seated  on  their  throne  ! 

There  was  strenuous  opposition  in  several  of  the 


CHAP,  xxi]     ENGLISH  FLEET  AND  ARMY      213 

provinces,  and  most  of  all,  and  longest  of  all,  in  the 
Calabrias.  Sicily  was  safe  from  the  French  grip 
through  our  fleets  and  the  presence  of  a  good  English 
army  of  10,000  and  more  men.  The  Queen  and 
many  others  would  have  tempted  the  Cardinal  to 
try  again,  or  to  do  in  1806-7  what  he  had  done  in 
1799.  "  No/"  said  he.  "  Queste  sono  corbellerie  che 
non  si  fanno  due  volte  nella  vita  d'un  uonio  "  ("  These 
are  pranks  not  to  be  played  twice  in  a  man's  life- 
time !").  He  had  had  enough  of  it.  He  might  have 
said,  with  the  French,  "  On  ne  parvient  pas  d,  se 
recommencery  Not  long  after,  he  rejoined  the 
impoverished,  persecuted  papal  court,  and  made  his 
peace  with  Napoleon.  He  went  even  to  Paris.  This 
was,  I  think,  at  the  marriage  with  the  Austrian 
Maria  Louisa,  but  I  am  not  sure. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

CAROLINE,  PRINCESS  OF  WALES 

The  deception,  the  cheating,  the  plunder,  practised 
upon  this  unhappy  woman  by  the  courier  Bergamo, 
his  sister,  and  other  relatives,  were  astounding. 
Their  systematic  cheating  brought  great  discredit  on 
Her  Royal  Highness.  In  return  for  the  loan  of  a 
house,  and  for  other  services  rendered,  the  Princess 
presented  the  Duchess  of  Gallo,  at  parting,  with  a 
pearl  necklace.  The  pearls  were  large,  and  thought 
to  be  of  great  value.  But  when  the  Duchess  had 
worn  them  a  few  times  at  balls  and  parties,  she 
thought  she  perceived  some  discoloration.  She 
sent  for  her  jeweller,  who  at  once  assured  her  that 
the  pearls  were  all  false,  and  not  worth  a  dollar. 
This  generous-minded  lady  understood  how  and  by 
whom  the  deception  had  been  practised;  she  never 
suspected  for  a  moment  that  the  Princess  had  given 
her  sham  pearls.  *In  other  cases,  with  persons  of 
inferior  rank,  when  the  Princess  had  promised  to 
leave  some  tokens  behind  her,  the  presents  were 
never  received;  Bergamo  and  his  gang  had,  no 
doubt,  intercepted  them. 

The  way  in  which,  on  her  first  coming,  she  betrayed 
her  insanity,  was  in  making  downright  love  to  that 
beau  sabreur,  King  Joachim  Murat  !  At  the  Court 
balls  she  would  waltz  with  him,  must  waltz  with 
him,  over  and  over  again.  He  was  tall,  she  rather 
dumpy  and  already  very  corpulent.  ''  Venez  d  mon 
aide,  Mre  Duchesse,''  said  Murat  one  night  to  the 

*  In  MacFarlane's  handwriting  to  the  end. 


CHAP,  xxii]  AT  COMO  215 

Duchessa  d'Atri,  "  cette  Princesse  de  VAngleterre 
nt'accable  !  Levcz  vous,  je  vons  en  prie^  et  allons  faire 
un  tour  de  valse.  Autrement  je  serai  confisque  de 
nouveati." 

Murat's  wife,  Caroline  Bonaparte,  Napoleon's 
favourite  sister,  and  the  member  of  the  family  most 
like  him,  was  far,  far  indeed,  from  being  jealous  of 
such  a  rival;  in  private,  with  her  dames  d'honneur, 
and  with  others,  she  amused  herself  at  Carohne's 
expense,  and  at  times  laughed  immoderately  at  her 
follies  and  at  her  personal  vanity. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  turn  up  les  ordures  that  were 
deposited  and  accumulated  on  the  trial  of  this  reck- 
less, hapless  woman;  who,  at  the  least,  was  quite  as 
much  sinned  against  as  sinning;  but  I  must  say 
that  never  was  Princess  less  fitted  to  be  a  Queen  of 
England ;  that  she  had  such  manners  and  such  moral 
defects  as  ought  to  have  closed  against  her  the  door 
of  the  house  of  every  respectable  Englishman  who 
had  a  family.  God  knows,  the  morals  of  Naples 
were  not  exemplary  at  this  period — there  has  been 
improvement  since — but  married  ladies  observed  les 
bienseances y  and  were  quite  scandalisees  at  many  of 
Caroline's  proceedings. 

It  was  the  same  story  at  Como,  where  she  lived 
so  long  with  Bergamo  and  Co.  I  passed  through  that 
district  in  1819,  about  a  year  before  she  came  back 
to  England  to  brave  her  husband  and  claim  the 
crown  matrimonial ;  I  saw  her  delightful  villa  on  the 
margin  of  the  lake,  and  I  saw  her  boating  on  the 
lake,  with  Bergamo  close  at  her  side,  and  his  sister 
seated  at  some  distance.  Her  Royal  Highness  had 
a  very  red  face ;  but  it  was  very  hot  weather.  Every- 
body in  the  antique  city  of  Como  and  in  the  romantic 
townships  and  villages  round  about,  were  talking 
about  her,  and  her  liaison  with  the  low-bred  man, 
and  the  way  in  which  he  and  his  relatives  were 
feathering  their  nests,  with  her  feathers.  Most  of 
these  people  had  known    the    Bergami,  a  very  few 


2i6  PRINCESS  CAROLINE      [chap,  xxii 

years  before,  when  they  were  menial  servants,  and 
as  poor  as  poor  could  be. 

By  the  favour  of  Caroline,  Princess  of  Wales, 
Bergamo,  the  chief,  was  now  a  Count,  Knight  of  her 
Highness's  Order  of  Jerusalem,  and  his  vulgar  sister 
was  a  Countess — Contessa  d'Oldi. 

"  The  Princess,"  said  the  host  at  "  mine  inn," 
"is  kind,  compassionate,  generous;  but  those  who 
are  about  her  stop  supplies,  pocket  the  money,  and 
the  poor  and  sick  seldom  get  anything  from  that 
quarter  !" 

They  all  regretted  that  so  high  and  great  a  lady 
should  have  formed  such  a  mean  and  degrading 
connection.  On  her  first  arrival  at  Naples,  and  for 
some  time  after,  Bergamo  was  a  courier  when  she 
travelled,  and  a  waiting-man  when  she  was  sedentary. 
In  the  latter  capacity,  he  often  waited  at  table  on 
the  Duchess  of  Gallo,  her  sisters,  the  fascinating 
Duchess  of  Atri,  and  the  Princess  of  Francavilla, 
the  Dukes  of  Gallo,  Atri,  and  Campomele,  Sir  William 
Gell,  the  Hon.  Keppel  Craven,  and  others,  English 
and  Italian,  with  whom  I  became  acquainted  three 
years  afterwards,  or  in  1 817.  "  What  first  annoyed 
us,"  said  the  Duchess  of  Atri,  by  birth  a  Colonna 
Stigliano,  "  was  to  see  this  man  suddenly  set  up  as 
a  gentleman  and  nobleman,  and  to  see  your  Princess 
trying  to  make  us  treat  him  as  such.  A  fellow  who, 
not  many  weeks  before,  had  stood  behind  our  chairs 
and  changed  our  plates  !     Era  un  po^  troppo  forte  .'" 

Lord  Brougham,  one  of  her  counsel  on  the  trial, 
with  Denman,  Dr.  Lushington,  etc.,  has  continued 
stoutly  to  maintain,  and  to  believe,  or  pretend  to 
believe,  not  only  that  Caroline  was  innocent  as 
regarded  Bergamo,  but  that  she  was  altogether  pure, 
chaste,  of  exemplary  life,  conversation,  and  conduct. 
Surely  he  must  have  known  better  !  Surely  this 
must  be  a  bit  of  his  lordship's  acting.  Of  late  I 
have  not  heard  him  allude  to  the  subject;  but,  a  few 
years  ago,  he  would  have  thundered  and  lightened 


CHAP,  xxii]     BARONNE  DE  FEUCHERES        217 

at  the  man  who  hesitated  to  take  his  view  of  it.  It 
would  have  appeared  then,  from  his  rhetoric,  that 
there  had  been  one  virtuous  woman  in  the  world, 
and  that  her  name  was  Caroline  of  Brunswick. 

At  no  time  of  his  life  did  Henry  Brougham  show 
any  passion  for  amassing  riches,  as  his  predecessor, 
Lord  Eldon,  had  done.  Long  before  he  reached  the 
Woolsack,  a  solicitor  in  great  practice  was  giving 
him  advice,  and  telling  him  that  if  he  would  only 
do  this  and  that,  he  might  double,  nay  treble,  his 
professional  income.  "  My  friend,"  said  Brougham, 
"  I  don't  want  to  make  myself  a  funnel  for  the  passage 
of  a  great  deal  of  money  !" 


LA  BARONNE  DE  FEUCHlfcRES 

There  are  some  omissions,  and  two  or  three  incorrect 
statements,  in  Thomas  Raikes's  account  of  this 
notorious  woman.  Her  original  name  was  Nancy 
Dawes,  not  Dawe.  Her  father  was  a  boatman  and 
fisherman  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  I  have  known 
persons  who  remembered  her  brothers  and  others 
of  her  relations  as  labourers  and  fishermen.  As  a 
girl,  she  was  not  only  very  handsome,  but  also  very 
clever.  Her  first  lover  was  a  young  English  officer 
belonging  to  one  of  the  regiments  or  one  of  the 
depots  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  He  took  some  pains 
in  instructing  her  himself;  and,  on  being  ordered 
on  foreign  service,  he  sent  her  to  a  ladies'  school  at 
Old  Brompton,  where  she  certainly  remained  some 
time.  According  to  one  account,  the  officer  was 
killed  in  battle;  according  to  another,  he  died  of 
a  West  Indian  fever;  and  according  to  a  third  account 
— as  likely  to  be  as  true  as  either  of  the  others — he 
grew  tired  of  the  expense,  and  ashamed  of  the  con- 
nection. It  may  be,  that  when  she  first  attracted 
the  notice  of  the  Due  de  Bourbon,  she  was  living 
with   the  fruiterer  in   Oxford  Street,  just   opposite 


2i8        BARONNE  DE  FEUCHfiRES     [chap,  xxii 

the  end  of  Bond  Street;  not,  however,  as  a  servant- 
girl,  but  as  an  attractive  shop-girl.  But  before 
attaining  to  this  post  she  had  gone  through  many- 
adventures .  When  she  went  to  Hve  with  the  Due, 
she  was  quite  an  accomplished  person,  and  said  to 
have  been  as  witty  as  her  co-peeress,  the  Duke  of 
York's  Mary  Anne  Clarke.  It  is  not  to  be  beheved 
that  the  Due  ever  attempted  to  pass  her  off  as  his 
own  illegitimate  child.  Raikes  gives  the  best  account 
I  have  seen  of  the  mysterious  death  of  the  imbecile 
old  Prince.  Another  account,  with  details  and  cir- 
cumstantiality es  which  savour  strongly  of  invention, 
will  be  found  in  Louis  Blanc's  "  Histoire  de  Dix  Ans." 
I  have  scarcely  met  the  Frenchman  or  Frenchwoman 
that  did  not  firmly  believe  that  the  Due  de  Bourbon 
was  murdered  by  Madame  de  Feucheres  and  her 
friend  the  Abbe.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  said  Abbe 
died  suddenly  a  month  after  the  Due,  and  that  the 
"  confidential  servant,"  who  might  have  made  terrible 
disclosures,  was  found  dead  in  his  bed  very  soon  after 
the  demise  of  the  Abbe.  The  Paris  nickname  was 
a  good  one — "  La  Baronne  de  Serrecol."  Nothing 
could  well  be  baser  than  the  conduct  of  Louis 
Philippe  in  these  transactions.  He  wanted  the 
Due's  wealth  for  his  son,  the  Due  d'Aumale,  and  he 
certainly  got  an  immense  portion  of  it.  When 
Madame  de  Feucheres  went  to  Paris,  after  the  sup- 
posed murder,  he  visited  her  in  private,  and  received 
her  several  times  in  his  family  reunions  at  the  Palais 
Royal.  Though  King  of  the  French,  he  had  not 
yet  taken  possession  of  the  Tuileries.  My  informant 
wondered  how  his  devout  Queen  and  his  very  moral 
sister  could  possibly  sit  in  such  company.  Raikes 
winds  up  that  story  by  saying  that  the  fisherman's 
daughter  died  "  in  great  distress  in  London."  She 
died  in  France,  and  bequeathed  rather  a  splendid 
fortune  to  her  nephew,  J.  Daw^es. 

She   had   previously   taken   care   of  this   precious 
relative,  for  he  had  been  brought  up  in  good  English 


CHAP,  xxii]       HER  NEPHEW,  DAWES  219 

schools,  and  had  held  a  commission  in  our  Army. 
It  has  been  my  fate  or  fortune  to  hear  a  good  deal 
about  this  rich  ruffian.  When  my  ci-devant  friend, 
N.C.,  married  a  common  strumpet,  and  ran  away 
to  the  Continent  to  escape  from  her  and  from  the 
debts  she  had  contracted,  he  became  acquainted 
with  this  Dawes,  who  was  then  residing  at  a  splendid 
Chateau — Monfontaine,  I  think — on  the  French  coast, 
and  indulging  most  extensively  in  yachting,  boating, 
hunting,  shooting,  drinking,  and  other  delights. 

My  friend  got  domiciled  with  him,  and  stayed  with 
him  at  the  Chateau  for  some  months. 

How  he  survived  the  visit  I  could  hardly  make  out, 

for  Dawes  was  constantly  putting  his  life  in  jeopardy, 

either  by  sea  or  on  dry  land.     I  have  rarely  heard, 

or  read  of,  such  a  dare-devil,  godless  ruffian.     But, 

though  a  tremendous  bully,  the  fellow  was  no  coward. 

It  may  be  fancied  how  he,  a  rich  Englishman,  and 

rich  by  French  spoils,  and  the  nephew  and  heir  of 

such  a  woman  as  Madame  la  Baronne,  was  treated 

by  the  Frenchmen  who  lived  in  his  neighbourhood. 

Before  he  had  been  two  years  in  France,  in  possession 

of  the  estate,  he  had  fought  about  a  dozen  duels,  and 

had   each   time  come  off  triumphantly.     Rapier  or 

sabre,  pistol  or  rifle,  all  was  the  same  to  Dawes. 

At  the  time  of  my  quondam  friend's  visit,  he  had  so 

established    a   reputation    for   courage,   daring,    and 

address,  that  the  French  had  made  up  their  minds  to 

leave   him   alone.     This   was   about   the  year    1843. 

A  year  or  two  later,  he  purchased  a  beautiful  place 

in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  his  native  place  as  well  as  that 

of  his  notorious  aunt,  and  here  he  established  his 

headquarters;  and  here,  I  believe,  he  is  now  living 

(1856).     N.  went  several  times  to  the  Isle  of  Wight 

to  visit  him.     He  had  collected   a  set  of  ferocious 

dogs,  a  wolf  or  two,  some  foxes,  an  enormous  eagle, 

and  other  beasts  and  birds  of  prey,  and  these  were 

so  disposed  round  the  house  and  in  the  grounds  that 

it  was  very  dangerous  for  a  stranger  to  walk  there. 


220        BARONNE  DE  FEUCH^RES     [chap,  xxii 

He  was  always  committing  some  assault,  or  getting 
into  quarrels  or  litigation.  The  poor  dreaded  him, 
and  none  of  the  gentry  would  associate  with  him. 
With  all  his  means  and  appliances  he  was  generally 
a  solitary,  sulking  man.  His  friendship  with  N. 
had  a  very  sudden  termination.  One  night — in  the 
very  middle  of  a  dark,  cold  night — he  startled  his 
guest  out  of  his  bed,  and  swore  that  he  would  blow 
out  his  brains  if  he  did  not  take  his  departure  on  the 
instant.  My  quondam  friend,  who  merited  the 
treatment  he  met  with  by  associating  with  such  a 
ruffian,  and  by  having  meanly  submitted  to  many 
previous  humiliations,  at  once  dressed  and  left  the 
house. 

Such  was  the  nephew  and  part -heir  of  Madame  la 
Baronne  de  Feucheres.  Louis  PhiHppe's  son.  His 
Royal  Highness  the  Due  d'Aumale,  was  a  co-heir. 


i 


CHAPTER    XXIII 

SIR  SIDNEY  SMITH 

The  Hero  of  Acre  met  in  Sicily,  at  the  house  of  a 
NeapoHtan  Royahst  and  fugitive,  an  old  French 
refugee  who  had  suffered  greatly  during  the  Reign 
of  Terror  in  France,  and  who  was  deploring,  in  no 
very  manly  way,  the  loss  of  estates  and  titles,  and 
stiffly  maintaining  that  under  the  ancien  regifne 
nothing,  in  politics,  had  been  done  amiss.  "  I  beg 
your  pardon,"  said  Sir  Sidney,  "  it  was  under  your 
ancien  regime y  and  with  a  Government  despotic  at 
home,  that  you  interfered  in  favour  of  our  revolted 
American  colonists,  who  were  going  for  a  democratic 
republic.  *'  Monsieur y  vous  avez  preche  la  revolution 
cliez  nous,  et  la  voild  chez  vous  F' 

Although,  like  all  men  who  talk  too  much  and  are 
overdosed  with  vanity  and  conceit,  the  Hero  of 
Acre  too  frequently  talked  nonsense  and  rendered 
himself  a  bore  even  to  his  best  friends  and  warmest 
admirers,  he  had,  very  often,  le  mot  heureuXy  and  the 
clever,  quick,  sharp,  cutting  epigram  or  antithesis. 

One  night,  at  the  Opera  of  San  Carlo,  he  spoke  at 
me  for  three  mortal  hours,  despite  of  Rossini's 
music  and  Vestris'  ballet,  and  this  without  a  single 
pause,  and  without  the  least  regard  to  those  who 
were  in  the  same  box  with  us.  He  had  taken  into 
his  head  that  I  intended  to  attempt  writing  his 
life;  a  task  performed  many  years  later  (1839),  and 
not  very  well,  by  my  sometime  acquaintance,  poor 
Ned  Howard,  author  of  "  Rattlin  the  Reefer  "  and 
of  other  sea  novels,  in  the  manner  of  Captain  Marryat. 

221  16 


«l 


! 


222  SIR  SIDNEY  SMITH      [chap,  xxiii 

Sir  Sidney  had  fallen  into  the  mistake  through  the 
interest   I   took  in  all  military  and  naval  matters,  J?  | 

and  the  anxiety  I  had  several  times  shown  to  hear 
his  adventures  from  his  own  lips.  The  interest, 
the  anxiety,  were  not  abated — but  three  consecutive 
hours,  and  at  the  then  best  Opera  in  Europe  !  '^  0  ! 
questa  sera  ci  siete  capitato  !^^  said  Madame  C,  who 
knew  him  well.     "  Non  ne  posso  piu  .■'"  said  I.* 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  vanity  and  loquacity 
of  the  Hero  of  Acre.  I  first  met  him  at  Rome,  in  the 
winter  of  1 8 16-17,  ^vhere  Madame  Mere,  and  I  think 
nearl}^  every  other  member  of  the  Bonaparte  famil}^, 
with  the  exception  of  Joseph,  who  w^as  gone  to 
America,  and  of  Caroline,  Murat's  widow,  who  was 
living  somewhere  near  Trieste,  had  taken  up  their 
abodes,  and  were  maintaining  a  very  good,  if  not 
splendid,  style  of  life.  It  was  curious  to  see  at 
Roman  balls  and  conversazioni,  and  at  the  houses  of 
the  foreign  ambassadors  and  ministers,  these  de- 
throned Kings  and  Queens  and  Potentates,  mixing 
with  English  Admirals  and  Generals,  British  peers 
and  distinguished  members  of  our  House  of  Commons, 
and  with  warriors,  statesmen,  and  diplomatists 
from  Russia,  from  Austria,  from  Prussia,  Spain,  and  . 

Portugal,  and  from  every  countr}^  which  had  been  ^  |i 

so  recently  waging  the  fiercest  of  wars  against 
Napoleon.  ' 

Sir  Sidney,  who  had  a  quick  sense  for  contrasts, 
and  a  keen  e3'e  for  the  picturesque  and  dramatic, 
seemed  wonderfully  to  enjoy  these  "  reunions  me- 
langees^  He  had  with  him  his  wife  and  his  two 
stepdaughters,  the  Misses  Rumbold,  at  that  period 
splendid  women,  objects  of  universal  admiration, 
the  cynosure  of  all  eyes.  I  grieve  to  add  that  they 
set  no  bounds  to  their  flirtations,  or  to  their  extrava- 
gance. A  pair  of  such  daughters — and  Sir  Sidney 
always  treated  them  as  his  own — was  enough  to 
ruin  a  much  richer  man.     Not  many  months  after 

*  Thus  far  in  C.  M.'s  handwriting. 


CHAP,  xxiii]  AT  NAPLES  223 

this,  I  met  Sir  Sidney  at  Naples,  and  became  rather 
intimate  with  him.  He  had  not  been  there  long 
when  I  began  to  hear  stories  about  his  thoughtless- 
ness as  to  money  matters,  his  debts,  and  other 
difficulties. 

When  he  received  money,  he  never  rested  till  he 
had  spent  it  all  on  dinner  parties  and  other  festivities. 
As  poor  Count  Pecchio  said  of  Ugo  Foscolo,  Smith 
never  knew  how  to  keep  any  balance  between  the 
Dare  and  the  Avere.  I  have  known  him  to  be  reduced, 
in  a  foreign  country,  and  even  with  persons  who  were 
comparatively  strangers,  to  very  humiliating  re- 
sources, but  I  never  knew  him  to  be  the  less  cheerful 
and  good-humoured  for  this.  At  times  his  conversa- 
tion was  instructive  and  altogether  delightful.  Ani- 
mated it  always  was,  but  this  excess  of  animation 
was  at  times  very  oppressive.  I  have  gone  away 
from  him  with  my  head  giddy  and  swimming,  as  if 
I  had  been  in  a  swing  or  on  a  roundabout.  Most 
of  his  time,  at  Naples,  he  had  with  him  Captain 
Arabin,  who  appeared  to  me  to  be  a  very  brave, 
ver}^  clever,  right-minded,  right-hearted  man.  It 
would  have  been  well  for  Sir  Sidney  if  he  had  always 
had  such  good  companions.  Unfortunately  he  was 
far  from  being  particular  in  choosing  his  entourage^ 
and  at  least  on  two  occasions  I  knew  him  to  form  an 
intimacy  with  a  defamed  man.  He  was  incessantly 
talking  of  his  own  exploits,  and  repeating  the  story 
of  how  he  defended  Acre,  over  and  over  again,  often 
to  the  selfsame  persons,  and  very  often  to  Neapolitan 
ladies  who  cared  nothmg  about  it,  and  who,  for  the 
most  part,  were  Napoleonists  an  fond  du  coeur. 
How  he  could  fancy  that  he  could  amuse  young, 
handsome,  and  fashionable  women  with  this  talk, 
I  could  not  comprehend.  At  times,  too,  he  was 
unlucky  in  his  references  to  past  events.  One  night, 
in  rather  a  large  party,  he  said  to  the  fair  and  graceful 
Duchessa  di  Gallo,  wife  to  the  well-known  old  diplo- 
matist, "  Duchessa,  when  I  used   to  come  into  the 


224  SIR  SIDNEY  SMITH      [chap,  xxiii 

bay  with  the  Tiger  and  squadron,  to  disturb  your 
French  King,  I  used  often  to  think  how  easy  it  would 
be  to  knock  your  house  about  your  ears,  and  to 
destroy  all  your  fashionable  houses  from  one  end  of 
the  Chiaja  to  the  other  !" 

"  We  are  much  obliged  to  you  for  not  having 
carried  that  idea  into  execution,"  replied  the  Duchessa. 
At  least  one-half  of  the  persons  present  had  long  had 
houses  in  this  fashionable  suburb,  which  lies  quite 
open  to  the  sea,  and  which  had  suffered  somewhat 
from  a  cannonade  in  the  troubles  of  1799.  Another 
mal  a  propos  was  his  violently  abusing  not  only  the 
Government  at  Naples,  but  the  personal  character 
of  Joseph  Bonaparte,  to  a  lady  who  had  been  one  of 
Joseph's  many  favourites,  and  who  had  had  a  child 
by  him,  a  boy  then  living,  and  astonishingly  like  the 
Bonaparte  family. 

In  spite,  however,  of  these  wearisome  details, 
Sir  Sidney  was  quite  a  favourite  in  the  best  society 
of  that  capital.  It  was,  indeed,  very  difficult  to 
dislike  him,  for  he  was  so  brave  and  chivalrous, 
so  generous  and  good-humoured,  and  had  always 
such  a  stock  of  cheerfulness. 

He  used  to  drive  about  with  his  wife  and  step- 
daughters in  a  great  big  lumbering,  antiquated 
landau,  the  panels  of  which  were  completeh^  covered 
with  arms,  supporters,  emblazonments,  orders,  and 
flags.  It  was  a  thing  to  exhibit  at  a  public  show; 
but  it  was  very  indicative  of  its  owner's  failings. 
I  know  not  how  many  good  jokes  the  wits  of  Naples 
made  upon  that  carrozzaccio  :  they  did  not  at  all 
discompose  Sir  Sidney,  who  must  have  heard  some 
of  them.  One  day  towards  the  close  of  the  year 
181 7,  he  made  himself  superlatively  ridiculous. 
The  dethroned  old  King  of  Spain,  Charles  IV.,  came 
from  Rome  to  Naples  on  a  visit  to  his  brother, 
old  King  Ferdinand.  In  honour  of  the  visitor, 
rather  a  splendid  review  was  got  up  at  the 
Campo  di  Marte. 


CHAP,  xxiii]  AT  A  REVIEW  225 

Sir  Sidney,  who  never  absented  himself  from  any- 
thing of  the  sort,  must  needs  go,  and  go  in  full  uni- 
form, and  attended  by  a  mounted  aide-de-camp. 
Several  English  officers,  of  Army  and  Navy,  then 
staying  at  Naples,  declined  the  honour  of  riding 
after  the  Admiral.  What  was  to  be  done?  At 
last  he  lighted  upon  a  certain  Mr.  O.,  who  had  once 
been  an  officer  of  Marines,  but  who  had  married  a 
Sicilian  wife,  and  had  left  our  service  under  circum- 
stances not  very  honourable.  He  made  this  poor 
devil  put  on  an  old  and  shabby  uniform,  and  mount 
a  hack-horse,  as  he  himself  was  mounted.  The 
steeds  were  the  merest  rips ;  at  that  period,  at  Naples, 
there  were  no  good  hacks  to  be  hired,  and  indeed 
but  few  good  saddle-horses  of  any  kind.  Horse- 
flesh has  been  much  improved  since  then.  I  was 
riding  gently  up  the  fine  sloping  road  which  leads 
to  the  camp,  in  company  with  Captain  C.  and  another 
English  officer,  when  we  heard  a  tremendous  clatter- 
ing behind,  and  were  presently  passed  by  the  Admiral 
and  his  Marine,  who  were  "  going  the  pace  "  with 
a  vengeance. 

Sir  Sidney  was  covered  all  over  with  insignia, 
like  the  panels  of  his  own  coach.  He  had  put  on 
all  his  orders,  ribbons,  and  other  badges,  and  of 
these  he  had  a  great  many,  being  decor e  by  England, 
France,  Spain,  Portugal,  Sardinia,  Naples,  Sweden, 
etc.  The  very  broad,  bright,  blood-red  sash  of  the 
Order  of  St.  Januarius  was  very  conspicuous  on  his 
chest;  but,  altogether,  with  all  these  trappings 
dangling  about  him,  he  looked  like  a  rat-catcher 
equipped  for  business.  "  What  a  pity,"  said  C, 
"  that,  with  all  his  good  and  high  qualities.  Sir 
Sidney  should  not  have  a  little  modesty,  a  little 
common  sense  !"  But  on  went  the  brave  sailor, 
cantering  among  the  carriages,  saluting  all  the  ladies, 
caracoling  along  the  lines,  talking  to  King  Ferdinand, 
disappearing  and  quickly  reappearing,  and  always 
with  Mr.  O.  close  astern.     It  was  astonishing  how 


» 


226  SIR  SIDNEY  SMITH      [chap,  xxiii 

the  poor  hacks  stood  it.  They  and  their  riders 
seemed  gifted  with  ubiquity. 

For  that  cHmate,  it  was  a  damp  and  cold  day;  the 
review  did  old  Charles  IV.  no  good ;  but  it  was  a  boar- 
hunt  in  the  woods  of  Persano,  by  Paestum,  that 
carried  him  off,  very  soon  after.  That  evening, 
accoutred  and  encumbered  as  he  was,  "  with  all  his 
blushing  honours  thick  upon  him,"  Sir  Sidney  went 
to  the  Opera  at  San  Carlo,  and  sat  full  in  front  of 
his  box.  He  loved  to  have  all  eyes  fixed  upon  him, 
and  to  hear  people  say,  "  Quello  e  il  faniosissimo 
ammiraglio  Sir  Sniitt .'" 

His  own  account  of  his  escape  from  the  prison 
of  the  Temple  at  Paris  was  very  interesting,  but  it 
has  often  been  told.  He  always  expressed  an  entire 
conviction  that  if  he  had  fallen  into  the  clutches  of 
Napoleon  and  Savary,  he  would  have  been  murdered 
in  prison  like  Pichegru  and  Wright.  L 

"  I  did  him  so  much  harm,"  said  he;  "  and  then  ^>| 

in  Egypt  our  enmity  became  personal,  and  a  pretty  ' 

hot,  personal  quarrel  it  w^as  !  He  gave  me  the  lie, 
and  I  sent  him  a  challenge,  which  he  would  not 
accept."  i. 

Although    he    committed    sundry    diplomatic    and  *  H 

other  errors.  Sir  Sidney  really  did  good,  excellent  ,. 

service  in  Egypt,  as  w^ell  in  the  year  1800  as  in  1799  ■%  U 

at  Acre,  and  for  these  he  could  not  be  otherwise 
than  esteemed  by  his  brother  officers  and  by  his 
superiors  in  command.  Both  Admiral  Lord  Keith 
and  General  Sir  Ralph  Abercromby  had  a  due  sense 
of  his  merits,  but  they  disliked  his  loquacity  and  his 
practice  of  intermeddling  with  ever^^thing.  One 
morning,  as  they  were  preparing  for  the  disembarka-  , 

tion  of  the  troops  in  Aboukir  Bay,  Lord  Keith,  the 
old  General,  and  Sir  George  Murray  were  walking 
the  quarter-deck  and  concerting  measures.  Suddenly 
the  Admiral  stopped  and  looked  over  the  bulwark. 
**  Yes,"  cried  he,  "  there  is  no  mistake  !  D — n 
it.  Sir  Rafe  !     Here  comes  that  talking  man  again  !" 


CHAP,  xxiii]     A  GREAT  EGOTIST  227 

Sir  George  Murray,  who  told  me  this,  told  me  a  great 
deal  more  about  poor  Sir  Sidney,  which  all  went  to 
prove  that  he  was  sadly  indiscreet,  and  that  Govern- 
ment could  hardly  have  helped  shelving  him  as  it 
did,  even  though  he  had  never  gone  into  those 
gallantries  at  Blackheath,  and  there  had  been  no 
such  person  in  the  world  as  Caroline,  Princess  of 
Wales. 

The  Prince  Regent  and  King  (George  IV.)  was, 
however,  of  too  vindictive  a  temper  ever  to  forgive 
him  his  Blackheath  adventures,  and  that  postern- 
gate  at  the  back  of  the  Princess's  grounds,  and  that 
suspicious  latchkey  or  passe  partont.  Only  once  did 
I  hear  him  speak  of  Her  Royal  Highness,  and  then 
it  was  manfully  to  assert  that  she  was  an  ill-used, 
innocent  woman. 

This  was  said  in  a  party  of  Neapolitans,  of  whom 
several  could  have  borne  evidence  that  if  not  guilty 
with  Bergamo,  she  was  the  most  indiscreet,  imprudent 
of  women,  and  one  who,  in  their  city,  had  set  appear- 
ances at  defiance.  The  charming  Duchess  of  Gallo, 
who  lent  her  a  house,  and  who  of  necessity  saw  a  great 
deal  of  her  during  her  stay  at  Naples,  could  have  told 
Sir  Sidney — as  she  had  told  me  and  others — more 
than  one  story  quite  decisive  as  to  the  Princess's 
manners,  and  even  moeurs.  The  facts  were  of  the 
Duchess's  own  knowledge. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  find  in  talk,  or  pen  in 
hand,  so  great  an  egotist  as  the  Hero  of  Acre.  With 
him  it  was  one  eternal  "I."  He  had  some  merit 
in  exciting  Europe  against  the  Barbary,  and  most 
barbarous.  Corsairs.  Long  before  1816,  he  had 
warmly  advocated  an  attack  on  Algiers,  and  the  rest 
of  those  piratical  nests. 

But,  after  Lord  Exmouth's  successful  expedition, 
Sir  Sidney  seemed  to  claim  the  entire  merit  of  the 
deed.  ''  I  published  two  pamphlets  at  Paris.  I 
stirred  up  my  old  friend  Louis  XVIII.  I  excited 
even   the   cold    and   cautious   Talleyrand.     I    stirred 


«i 


228  SIR  SIDNEY  SMITH      [chap,  xxiii 

up  my  old  friend  the  King  of  the  Netherlands,  who 
sent  a  part  of  his  fleet  to  join  ours  in  the  bombard- 
ment. I  got  up  an  agitation  on  the  Continent, 
and  it  was  through  me  and  the  effects  /  had  produced 
on  the  Continent  that  Lord  Castlereagh,  and  the 
rest  of  our  own  Ministers,  were  shamed  into  that 
affair." 

Sir  Sidney  left  Naples  rather  deeply  in  debt,  and 
I  lost  sight  of  him  for  more  than  twelve  years.  In 
that  long  interval,  however,  the  fame  of  some  of 
his  doings  reached  my  ears.  Being  in  Holland, 
somewhere  about  1828,  he  took  to  inventing  life- 
boats. Having  constructed  one,  which  he  was  quite 
sure  could  not  fail,  he  resolved  to  try  it  himself. 
But  as  he  must  have  an  aide-de-camp  with  him, 
he  took,  in  that  capacity,  that  utterly  ruined  and 
disgraced  spendthrift,  L.  G.  The  famous  lifeboat 
upset    at    a   very  short    distance   from    shore,   and  j 

Sir  Sidney  and  his   aide  had  a  very  narrow  escape  |#'l 

from  drowning.     Still,  I  believe,  the  inventor  con-  " 

tinned  to  maintain  that  his  plan  was  founded  on  .^^ 

infallible  principles,  and  that  the  little  accident  was  '     " 

entirely  owing  to  the  stupidity  of  the  Dutchmen 
who  built  the  boat.     In  the  spring  of  1830,  my  ally  ' 

and  crony  R.  L.  E.,  who  had  been  well  acquainted 
with  the  Hero  in  Turkey  and  elsewhere,  learned 
quite  accidentally  that  Sir  Sidney  was  in  London, 
and   staying   at   a   house  in   Bedford   Square.     The  <; 

next  morning  we  went  together  to  pay  him  a  visit.  j' 

We  had  to  knock  and  ring  several  times.     At  last  \ 

a  drab  of  a  servant-girl  came  out  into  the  area;  and,  \ 

after    keenly    eyeing    us,    asked    what    we    wanted.  ij 

"  Is  Sir  Sidney  Smith  staying  here?"  The  girl 
muttered  something  which  we  could  not  hear,  and 
then  disappeared.  In  a  minute,  however,  the  door 
was  opened  by  a  lad,  who  before  answering  our 
question  examined  us  and  asked  our  names.  When 
I  say  that  the  door  was  opened,  I  am  not  quite  correct, 
for  it   was  only  partially  opened,  the  chain   being 


CHAP,  xxiii]      HIS  GENEROSITY  229 

kept  up.  We  gave  our  cards  through  the  aperture, 
and  remained  standing  on  the  stone  steps.  **  This 
looks  as  if  Sir  Sidney  had  not  been  getting  richer," 
said  E. 

But  in  a  trice  the  boy  came  running  to  the  door; 
the  impeding  chain  was  removed,  and  we  were 
admitted. 

The  house  looked  very  much  like  a  lawyer's  house, 
but  we  saw  no  people  about  it.  We  found  the  Hero 
upstairs,  in  a  back  drawing-room,  seated  at  a  table 
covered  with  papers,  some  in  print,  some  in  MS. 
Twelve  years  had  produced  a  very  visible  change  in 
his  person,  but  his  eye  was  as  bright,  and  his  heart 
as  buoyant,  as  ever. 

He  was  astonished  that  E.  had  discovered  his 
whereabouts,  and  he  cautioned  us  to  preserve  a 
prudent  silence  as  to  his  being  in  town.  We  could 
not  but  understand  what  this  meant;  but  he  was 
quite  and  fully  explicit — there  were  writs  out  against 
him,  and  he  was  afraid  of  being  "  nabbed."  **  There 
are  times,"  said  he — not  with  a  sigh,  but  with  a 
laugh — "  when  one  cannot  tell  everybody  where 
one  lives."  Subsequently  I  was  reminded  of  these 
words  by  what  fell  from  my  former  acquaintance, 
T.  K.H.,  the  poet.  "  H.,"  said  one  of  his  intimate 
friends,  "where  do  you  hang  out  now?  I  don't 
know  where  you  live  !"  ''  Very  few  do,"  replied 
the  poet. 

Yet,  though  thus  playing  at  "  hide-and-seek,"  and 
though  otherwise  in  great  straits,  poor  Sir  Sidney's 
heart  was  as  large  and  as  generous  as  in  former 
times.  He  had  been  sending  money  to  the  distressed 
widow  and  children  of  an  officer  who  had  once  served 
under  him,  and  he  was  exceedingly  anxious  about 
some  old  friend  who  had  been  ruining  himself  by 
speculations  in  Change  Alley.  He  talked  of  getting 
up  a  merry  little  dinner  party  at  some  out-of-the-way 
house  of  entertainment,  where  we  might  talk  over 
old  times,  and  where  he  would  not  be  known. 


mi 


230  SIR  SIDNEY  SMITH      [chap,  xxiii 

Two  or  three  days  after  I  called  again,  and  saw 
only  the  servant-girl  of  the  area.  Sir  Sidney  was 
gone.  She  knew  not  whither.  Not  many  months 
after  this  he  reappeared,  and  could  show  himself  in 
public.     George   IV.  had  gone  to  the  vaults  under  ^_ 

St.  George's  Chapel,  and  William   IV.  was  on  the  W*fr 

throne.  As  Duke  of  Clarence,  William  IV.  had 
associated  a  good  deal  with  the  Hero,  and  had  always 
expressed  for  him  admiration  and  affection.  Sir 
Sidney,  counting  on  these  sentiments,  was  confident 
that  he  would  soon  be  employed,  and  even  be  pro- 
moted. He  must  have  made  some  arrangements 
with  his  troublesome  creditors,  for  the  "  good  things  " 
were  not  yet  come;  they  were  only  coming.  One 
day,  as  I  w^as  perched  on  the  top  of  a  coach,  going  to 
Brighton,  I  saw  Sir  Sidney  walking  along  Piccadilly, 
with  a  quick,  elastic  step,  and  a  very  cheerful  counte- 
nance. A  very  short  time  after  this,  my  crony, 
R.  L.  E.,  was  invited  to  meet  the  Hero  at  dinner, 
at  the  country-house  of  that  kind  and  very  hospitable 
old  Turkey  merchant,  Mr.  N.  K.,  who  was  a  very 
old  friend  of  the  Admiral.  Sir  Sidney  was  true  to 
time,  but  the  dinner  was  kept  waiting  by  the  non- 
appearance of  that  exemplary  scamp,  L.G.,  who  w^as 
again  hanging  on  to  the  Admiral,  and  doing  all  kinds 
of  work  for  him,  and  giving  himself  the  title  of 
"  Secretary."  When,  at  length,  Mr.  Secretary  made 
his  appearance,  Sir  Sidney,  who  was  hungry  then, 
and  impatient  alw^ays,  said,  "  G.,  why  the  devil 
can't  you  be  punctual  ?  We  have  been  waiting 
nearly  an  hour."  "  Sir  Sidney,"  said  the  rogue, 
with  a  gravity  that  struck  E.  as  being  exceedingly 
laughable,  "  Sir  Sidney,  I  was  obliged  to  wait  for 
the  despatches  !"  And  here  he  produced  three  or 
four  letters,  which,  to  E.'s  eye,  looked  very  much 
like  lawyer's  letters.  The  merriest  man — we  need 
not  add,  the  most  talkative — at  that  hospitable  table 
was  the  Hero  of  Acre,  who,  as  an  inevitable  necessity, 
told  over  again  the  incidents  of  that  siege.     E.  rode 


I 


CHAP,  xxiii]     GENERAL  OF  MARINES  231 

back  to  town  with  him ;  and  though  himself  a  great 
and  a  rapid  talker,  he  could  scarcely  "  get  in  a  word 
edgeways."  Sir  Sidney  was  building  up  most 
splendid  castles  in  the  air,  and  making  plans  and 
projects  that,  in  execution,  must  have  taken  half  a 
century;  and  at  this  time  he  was  getting  on  towards 
the  threescore  years  and  ten. 

King  William  did  not  disappoint  him.  He  obtained 
the  command  of  one  of  our  Home  Stations,  and  was 
made  General  of  Marines.  This  ought  to  have  set 
him  at  ease  as  to  money  matters,  but  I  believe  that 
it  did  not. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

SIR    GEORGE    MURRAY 

When   the   Due   de   Montpensier,  the  son   of   King 
Louis  PhiHppe,  came  over  to  England  in   1845,  he 
was  Master-General  of  the  Ordnance  in  France.     As 
Sir  George  Murray  then  held  the  like   appointment 
in  England,  he  was  invited,  or  bidden,  in  the  style 
royal,  to  the  first  dinner  given  to  H.R.H.  at  Windsor 
Castle.     The  two  Masters-General — the  one  advanced 
in  years,  and  a  tried  old  soldier,  the  other  an  inex- 
perienced  young  man,  who  owed  his  high   military 
rank  to  the  accident  of  his  being  a  King's  son — had 
a  good  deal  of  conversation  after  the  repast.    The 
Duke  expressed,  in  anxious  terms,  the  desire  to  be 
shown   over  Woolwich  Arsenal  as  soon  as  possible. 
Sir  George,  as  a  matter  of  course,  allowed   him   to 
name  his  day  and  hour.     Sir  George  was  too  busy  to 
go  himself,  but  he  sent  an  aide-de-camp  and  his  own 
son-in-law,  Captain   Boyd,  to  attend   His   Highness, 
who  took  with  him  some  half-dozen  French  officers. 
No  reception  could  have  been  more  respectful,  and 
at  the  same  time  more  cordial,  than  that  which  these 
foreigners  met  with.     They  were  shown  over  every 
part  of  the  Arsenal,  into  all  the  workshops,  model 
rooms,  and  into  the  laboratory;  they  were  allowed 
ample    time    to    examine    everything    they    chose, 
whether  of  old  or  of  recent  invention;  and  the  in- 
spection   being    over,    they    were    entertained    at    a 
splendid  luncheon  in  the  mess-room  of  our  Artiller}^, 
who  know  how  to  do  that  sort  of  thing  in  the  very  best 
style,  and  who  have  plenty  of  plate  and  all  other 

232 


*1 


CHAP,  xxiv]      DUC  DE  MONTPENSIER  233 

necessary  means  and  appliances.  About  a  week 
after  the  return  of  the  Duke  to  Paris,  Sir  George 
Murray's  aide-de-camp  received  a  letter  from  one 
of  the  aides-de-camp  of  H.R.H.  I  was  with  Sir 
George,  in  the  Ordnance  Office,  when  this  letter  was 
brought  to  him.  After  glancing  his  eye  over  it,  he 
smiled  and  said:  "  Here  is  rather  a  nice  specimen  of 
French  impudence  !  Read  this  !"  The  letter  con- 
tained a  request,  on  the  part  of  the  Duke,  that  Sir 
George  would  have  some  drawings  made  of  some 
new  gun-carriage  and  other  newly-invented  machinery, 
and  that  these  drawings  might  be  forwarded  as  soon 
as  convenient.  "  His  Royal  Highness,"  said  the 
aide-de-camp ,  "  though  he  very  attentively  inspected 
all  that  came  under  his  eye  at  Woolwich,  does  not 
quite  distinctly  remember  the  construction  and 
application  of  some  of  these  objects,  and  would  be 
greatly  assisted  by  some  correct  drawings."  "  It 
is  really  cool,"  said  I.  "  What  answer  will  you  give. 
Sir  George  ?"  **  A  polite  but  a  positive  No  !" 
said  he. 

I  am  not  aware  how  Englishmen  visiting  French 
arsenals  were  treated  at  that  period,  or  how  they  may 
be  treated  now^;  but  I  can  speak  to  the  reception  I, 
in  my  humble  capacity,  met  with  at  Toulon  at  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1829,  while  as  yet  Charles  X. 
was  King;  I  went  to  the  Arsenal  with  a  letter  to 
the  Commandant  from  a  respectable  merchant  and 
banker  of  Marseilles.  This  officer  received  me  with 
very  scant  courtesy.  He  abruptly  asked  me  whether 
I  were  "  miliiaire/'  As  I  had  just  returned  from 
travelling  in  the  East,  I  still  wore  a  moustache  and 
had  a  sunburnt  face.  I  assured  him  that  I  was  not 
in  the  Army;  and  he  had  the  rudeness  to  betray,  by 
his  looks,  the  suspicion  that  I  was  telling  an  untruth 
and  that  he  did  not  believe  me.  After  a  very  little 
talk,  he  called  up  two  gens  d'armes,  and  told  them 
to  conduct  me  over  the  Arsenal.  With  one  of  these 
fellows  on  either  flank,   I   was  hurried  and  trotted 


234  SIR  GEORGE  MURRAY     [chap,  xxiv 

through  the  Arsenal.  I  must  have  looked  something 
like  a  criminal  condemned  to  the  galle\^s.  I  was  not 
allowed  time  to  examine  anything;  I  was  hurried 
on  from  place  to  place,  and  many  places  I  was  not 
allowed  to  enter  at  all.  I  threw  away  a  five-franc 
piece  in  a  vain  endeavour  to  soften  these  two  police- 
soldiers,  ^^  Allans,  Monsieur/  Marchons /"  And 
awa}^  they  hurried  me.  Beyond  the  roguish  counte- 
nance of  a  fellow  who  was  "  aux  bagnes/'  for  having 
stolen  the  jewels  of  Mademoiselle  Mars,  the  famous 
actress — the  beds  or  boards  on  which  the  galeriens 
are  chained  and  fastened  down  side  by  side  at  night, 
their  legs  being  secured  in  a  sort  of  long  iron  stocks — 
I  really  remember  next  to  nothing  of  what  I  so  hastily 
saw  in  the  Arsenal  and  dock3^ards  of  Toulon.  I 
hope  that  they  now  manage  these  matters  better 
in  France,  and  that  less  jealousy  and  more  liberality 
are  shown  to  us  English,  who  are  so  liberal  towards 
the  French;  but  from  some  few  things  which  have 
recently  come  to  my  knowledge,  "  j'en  doute.'' 

One  morning  that  I  called  at  the  Ordnance  Office, 
Sir  George  was  going  to  attend  the  Committee, 
at  that  time,  if  I  remember  well,  sitting  in  consulta- 
tion on  some  of  the  Park  or  other  West  End  improve- 
ments. He  was  ill,  very  ill;  already  yielding  to  the 
maladies  which  were  so  soon  to  bring  him  to  the 
grave. 

He  was  out  of  humour  with  most  of  the  decisions 
the  Committee  had  previously  come  to,  and  with 
nearly  everything  that  had  been  done  under  their 
auspices;  and  as  a  man  of  taste  and  sound  judgment, 
he  might  well  have  been  so.  "I  wish  I  were  not 
going,"  said  he ;  "  I  would  much  rather  stay  here  and 
talk  over  the  Marlborough  despatches  with  3^ou  !" 
He  was  then  editing  those  despatches,  and  I  was 
occasionally  giving  him  a  little  assistance.  He  said: 
"  It  seems  to  me  that  this  Committee  does  hardly 
anything  that  is  right.  If  twenty  or  thirty  archi- 
tectural plans  and  designs  be  brought  before  them, 


It 


i 


CHAP,  xxiv]     COMMITTEE  OF  TASTE 


235 


it  is  the  toss-up  of  a  halfpenny  that  they  do  not 
choose  the  very  worst  and  the  most  expensive. 
Was  there  ever  anything  worse  than  the  Nelson 
Column,  with  the  queer  statue  a-top  of  it,  that  looks 
like  a  man  with  a  tail  !     Two  sailors  were  coming 

out  of  the  Strand  into  Trafalgar  Square.     '  D 

me,  Jack,'  said  one  to  the  other,  '  if  they  haven't 
top-masted  the  Admiral  !  There's  a  pretty  go  ! 
I  wonder  what  next  !'  I  think,"  continued  Sir 
George,  "  that  I  shall  cry  oft.  I  am  sick  of  voting 
in  minorities,  and  of  seeing  things  adopted  of  which 
I  cannot  approve.  It  is  the  old  English  story: 
there  are  on  the  Committee  men  of  indisputable 
taste  and  ability,  men  quite  incapable  of  being 
swayed  by  partialities,  or  prejudices,  or  self-interested 
motives;  but  these  men  are  not  regular  in  their 
attendance,  or  strenuous  in  their  exertion;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  set  of  inferior  individuals,  inferior 
not  only  in  taste  but  also  in  other  qualities,  are 
constant  in  their  attendance  at  the  Board,  and  by 
coalescing  and  clubbing  together,  they  generally 
manage  to  carry  everything  their  own  way.  Yet 
all  things  are  done  in  the  name  of  the  Committee, 
as  one ;  and  I  and  your  friend,  Mr.  Hallam,  and  old 
Sam  Hughes — not  to  mention  others — are  members 
of  that  Committee,  and  are  often  held  to  be,  in  part, 
responsible  for  the  solecisms  and  blunders  that  are 
committed.  The  Duke  laughed  at  me  for  accepting 
the  nomination.  If  I  had  taken  the  Duke's  advice, 
I  should  never  have  been  on  the  Committee  of 
Taste.  The  Duke's  plain  common  sense  always  leads, 
and  always  did  lead  him  right.  One  of  his  maxims 
has  been,  never  to  undertake  work  with  your  arms 
tied;  another,  never  to  seek  reputation,  or  the  power 
of  doing  good  or  preventing  evil,  as  a  member  of 
a  Committee  or  any  such  body  !  For,  though 
you  will  get  neither  credit  nor  praise  for  what  it 
does  well,  you  will  not  escape  blame  for  what  it 
does  ill." 


236  SIR  GEORGE  MURRAY     [chap,  xxiv 

When  Moore  was  on  the  advance  to  Salamanca, 
a  party  of  our  hght  cavalry,  one  fine  afternoon, 
suddenly  surprised  and  took,  with  all  he  had  upon  him 
or  with  him,  a  French  Cabinet  courier  who  was 
coming  from  Paris  and  seeking  the  Emperor  Napoleon, 
whose  whereabouts  was  at  the  moment  rather 
uncertain.  Besides  despatches,  the  courier  was  the 
bearer  of  a  magnum  of  the  choicest  burgundy,  no 
doubt  a  present  from  the  thoughtful  Cambaceres, 
who  always  held  that,  whether  in  war  or  diplomacy, 
there  was  nothing  like  good  cheer.  Having  read  or 
deciphered,  as  far  as  they  were  able,  all  the  despatches 
and  letters,  Sir  John,  turning  to  George  Murray,  said 
laughingly:  "  Now  after  this  day's  work  let  us  wet 
our  whistles,  and  try  what's  in  the  bottle  !"  Murray, 
nothing  loath,  drew  the  cork,  and  clean  glasses  were 
forthcoming,  and  were  filled  in  a  trice.  "  Burgundy, 
by  Jove  !"  cried  Murray.  "  And  of  the  very  first 
quality  !"  said  Sir  John,  taking  his  first  sip  of  the 
glass.  ''Murray,  it  must  be  '  Vin  de  Nuits /' " 
Here  a  timid,  cautious  aide-de-camp,  turning  pale 
as  he  spoke,  and  almost  taking  the  glass  out  of 
his  General's  hand,  said:  "Stop,  Sir  John!  For 
Heaven's  sake  have  a  care  !  The  wine  may  be 
poisoned,  and  the  courier  and  the  bottle  may  have 
been  purposely  thrown  in  your  way  to  take  you  off  !" 
"  A  most  improbable  conjecture,"  said  Sir  John, 
emptying  his  glass  at  a  draught,  and  passing  the  bottle 
to  Murray,  who  confessed  that  his  mouth  was  water- 
ing. "  But  who  knows,"  said  the  cautious  aide-de- 
camp, but  that  some  mortal  enemy  at  Paris  may 
have  drugged  the  wine,  to  take  off  Napoleon  himself  ? 
He  has  many  enemies  in  France  who  would  be  quite 
equal  to  such  a  deed  !"  "  Pooh  !"  said  Murray,  who 
had  finished  his  first  glass  while  the  officer  was  talk- 
ing. "  If  there  is  poison  here,  I  wash  we  had  a  hogs- 
head of  it  !  It  is  pure,  unalloyed,  unmistakable 
burgundy,  of  the  very  best  vintage.  Take  a  glass, 
man,   and    thank   your   stars   for   throwing   such   a 


CHAP,  xxiv]  SIR  JOHN  MOORE  237 

prize  in  our  way,  in  this  hungry,  sour-wine,  barbarous 
country  !"  Seeing  no  ill-effects  either  in  the  General 
or  the  Quartermaster,  the  aide-de-camp  filled  his 
own  glass,  but  he  sipped  it  rather  cautiously,  and 
was  not  at  all  anxious  to  replenish  it.  As  he  was  not 
familiar  with  the  peculiar  odour  and  flavour  of 
burgundy,  he  fancied  there  was  something  queer, 
if  not  deleterious,  in  the  wine.  "  And  so,"  said 
Murray,  "  the  General  and  I  had  pretty  well  all  the 
magnum  to  ourselves,  and  very  merry  we  got  over  it." 

Sir  George  Murray  told  me  this  little  anecdote, 
with  many  others,  in  the  Ordnance  Ofihce,  Pall 
Mall,  in  the  summer  of  1844,  when  he  was  Master- 
General  of  the  Ordnance,  and  not  many  months 
before  his  death,  deeply  lamented  by  me. 

"  When  that  magnum  fell  in  our  way,"  said  the 
veteran,  the  accomplished  and  free-hearted  soldier, 
"  we  had  been  for  weeks  on  rather  short  commons, 
drinking  nothing  but  common  Spanish  wines,  which 
all  savoured  strongly  of  the  goat-skins  in  which  they 
had  been  carried  into  the  market  or  the  camp;  so 
that  I  must  confess  I  was  quite  greedy  after  the 
burgundy,  and  enjoyed  it  amazingly,  as  did  also 
poor  Moore."  And  Sir  George  spoke  as  if  he  had 
still  on  his  lips  and  palate  the  flavour  of  that  delicious 
wine — lost  to  Napoleon,  and  drunk  by  his  foes. 


17 


CHAPTER  XXV 

FIELD-MARSHAL  VISCOUNT  HARDINGE 

For  all  the  favours,  important  services,  and  benefits 
for  which  I  am  indebted  to  m}"  generous  patroness 
and  friend,  the  Countess  of  Jersey,  I  count  among 
the  greatest  of  all,  my  acquaintance,  and  I  ma^^  now 
say  fnendship,  with  this  brave  soldier,  able  states- 
man, and  excellent  and  most  kind-hearted  man. 
I  was  well  acquainted  with  his  noble  character, 
with  his  conduct  on  the  field  of  Corunna,  with  his 
admirable  decision  at  Albuera,  with  the  whole  of 
his  militar}'  career  from  the  time  that  he  first  drew 
his  sword  in  Portugal,  down  to  the  time  when  he 
sheathed  it  in  India,  after  achieving  the  two  glorious 
victories  of  Moodkee  and  Ferozeshah.  As  Sir  Henry 
Hardinge,  I  had  often  admired  him  as  a  spirited 
debater  and  a  clear-headed  man  of  business,  in  the 
House  of  Commons. 

No  one  ever  brought  up  the  Army  Estimates,  or 
discussed  matters  connected  with  the  Service,  as 
well  as  he  did  when  Secretary  of  War.  He  did  not 
pretend  to  be  an  orator,  or  a  maker  of  long,  set 
speeches ;  but  he  was  uncommonly  smart  and  quick 
as  a  debater,  and  could  always  keep  his  own,  and  reply 
on  the  instant  to  his  adversaries.  In  this  respect  he 
was  not  inferior  to  the  long-practised  and  very 
literary  John  Wilson  Croker;  while  his  manner,  his 
tone,  and  personal  bearing,  were  far  superior  to 
those  of  the  cold,  sarcastic,  ex-Secretary  to  the 
Admiralty.  Sir  Henry  could  say  his  sharp,  cutting 
things,  and  he  did  say  a  good  many  of  them  during 

238 


• 


CHAP,  xxv]     DUKE  OF  WELLINGTON  239 

those  last  stormy,  tempestuous  debates  on  the  Reform 
Bill;  but  there  was  so  much  heart  and  earnestness 
in  all  that  he  said,  that  few  or  none  could  take  offence. 
He  w^ould  never  go  beyond  his  depth,  or  affect  to 
be  learned.  He  could  never  forget  the  advice  the 
Duke  gave  him  when  he  was  entering  Parliament 
for  the  first  time,  and  much  doubting  of  success. 

"  Hardinge,"  said  Welhngton,  ''  speak  only  on 
subjects  that  you  well  understand,  never  quote 
Latin,  and  you  will  do  very  well."  This  story  has 
been  applied  to  Sir  George  Murray.  A  mistake. 
Sir  George  was  a  very  considerable  scholar,  which 
Sir  Henr}'  had  not  had  time  to  become,  as  he  joined 
his  first  regiment  in  Canada  when  he  was  little  more 
than  fifteen  years  of  age.  One  day,  Lad}^  Jersey, 
in  her  kindest  manner,  told  me  that  I  had  an  admirer 
in  Lord  Hardinge,  that  he  and  his  sons  were  greatly 
pleased  with  my  History  of  British  India,  and  that 
his  lordship  wished  to  make  my  acquaintance,  and 
to  do  me  a  good  turn.  I  was  introduced  in  the  course 
of  that  same  da}'',  a  bright,  cheerful,  sunny  day  of 
June,  1850;  and  from  that  day  to  this,  25th  August, 
1856,  I  have  been  almost  constantly  receiving  some 
proofs  of  his  lordship's  kindness. 

I  have  never  applied  to  him  in  vain  for  a  favour; 
in  most  instances  he  has  anticipated  my  wishes. 
His  open  countenance,  his  frank,  hearty  manner, 
his  cheerfulness,  the  clear  ring  of  his  voice — like  a 
silver  bell — the  penetrating  3^et  caressing  glance  of 
his  bright  gre}^  eye,  won  my  heart  at  once,  and  now 
that  I  have  nothing  more  to  hope  from  him,  now  that 
he  is  departing  from  this  world,  I  can  safely  say  that 
no  man  was  ever  more  grateful  or  more  attached  to 
him  than  I  have  been,  or  am. 

When  his  lordship  knew  me  only  by  my  books, 
and  by  the  too  partial  account  of  me  given  by  Lady 
Jersey,  he  had  rendered,  through  her  ladyship,  an 
important  service  to  my  son  Charles,  and  at  our  very 
first  interview  he  rendered  him  and  me  another. 


240  VISCOUNT  HARDINGE     [chap,  xxv 

"  I  see,"  said  his  lordship,  "  that  Sir  James  Hogg 
has  appointed  your  son  to  the  Cavalry  and  to  the 
Bombay  Presidency.  This  won't  do.  I  have  not 
a  very  high  opinion  of  our  Indian  Regular  Cavalry; 
in  it,  your  boy  won't  learn  his  trade.  It  must  be 
Infantry.  Then,  it  will  be  best  for  him  to  go  to 
Bengal,  and  to  be  near  to  Headquarters.  I  will  give 
him  a  letter  to  Sir  William  Gomm,  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  and  another  to  my  good  friend  Colonel  Birch, 
Military  Secretary.  They  can  help  him  a  good  deal; 
he  will  find  them  both  at  Calcutta.  But  now,  do 
you  go  back  to  Lady  Jersey,  and  get  her  to  see  the 
appointment  set  right.  Sir  James  Hogg,  who  gives 
the  cadetship,  will  have  no  difficulty  in  making  the 
alteration.  Who  can  refuse  anything  to  Lady  Jersey  ? 
But  go  at  once  1  Her  ladyship  may  be  going  out. 
My  brougham  will  be  at  the  door  in  a  minute;  take 
it  as  far  as  Berkele}"  Square,  and  then  send  it  back 
for  me,  and  come  here  to-morrow  and  tell  me  that 
we  have  succeeded."  I  found  Lady  Jersey  at  home, 
and  on  the  evening  of  that  same  day  she  did  succeed 
with  Sir  James. 

In  the  course  of  that  summer,  1850,  I  had  dinners 
and  rather  frequent  and  long  interviews  with  Lord 
Hardinge,  who  had  then,  as  he  was  holding  no  office, 
plenty  of  leisure  time.  At  the  end  of  the  season, 
when  London  was  emptying  itself  into  the  country, 
he  invited  me  to  South  Park,  and  told  me  to  come 
for  two  or  three  days,  and  to  come  often. 

"  You  shall  see  my  farming,"  said  he.  '^  You 
shall  see  my  tree-planting,  in  which,  at  least,  I 
pretend  to  be  as  knowing  as  the  Earl  of  Peterborough, 
who  trimmed  vines  and  planted  quincunxes  for 
Pope.  You,  who  are  a  poet,  can  ramble  about 
Penshurst  Castle  and  Park,  and  think  of  Sir  Phihp 
Sidney  and  Arcadia.  Our  place  is  just  above 
Penshurst." 

In  October,  on  leaving  Mr.  Mountstuart  Elphin- 
stone's  (Hookwood  Park),  I  drove  across  the  country 


CHAP.  XXV]    AS  A  COUNTRY  GENTLEMAN     241 

to  Penshurst  and  South  Park,  a  delightful  drive  of 
some  fourteen  miles,  through  a  quiet,  secluded 
country  which  contains  one  or  two  old  castles  and 
some  fine  old  manor-houses.  At  my  arrival  his 
lordship  was  out,  but  Miss  Hardinge  told  me  that  I 
should  find  him  in  a  part  of  the  plantation  to  which 
she  pointed.  As  I  approached  it  I  heard  the  sound 
of  someone  sawing,  and  on  getting  up  to  the  spot  I 
found  that  his  lordship  was  the  sawyer. 

With  the  stump  of  his  left  arm  resting  on  a  big 
bough,  and  with  the  saw  in  his  right  hand,  the 
venerable  statesman  and  warrior,  the  hero  of  Albuera, 
of  Ligny,  and  of  all  those  other  fights,  was  sawing 
away  that  bough  which  interfered  with  a  charming 
view  of  the  grounds  from  the  house.  He  welcomed 
me  most  cordially,  but  he  did  not  talk  much  till  he 
had  finished  the  job.  He  then  took  me  up  a  steep 
hill,  on  the  summit  of  which  he  was  building,  with 
wood  felled  in  his  own  park,  a  curious  and  picturesque 
summer-house,  in  imitation  of  one  he  had  often 
admired  at  Simla  in  the  Himalaya  mountains. 
He  was  very  proud  of  his  work.  "  With  a  little  aid 
from  the  carpenter  and  builder  of  the  village,"  said 
he,  "  we  have  done  it  all  ourselves;  Charles  and  I 
drew  the  plan,  and  our  own  people  carried  it  out. 
I  like  to  be  improving,  I  like  to  be  doing,  and  cannot 
bear  idleness  in  any  form.  I  never  could."  A 
lady  once  paid  him  this  compliment :  "  Lord  Hardinge, 
I  almost  think  it  is  lucky  that  you  have  but  one 
hand,  for  if  you  had  two  hands  you  would  never 
find  work  enough  for  both  !"  From  the  Himalayan 
kiosk  we  went  to  see  some  experiment  he  was  trying 
in  soils,  manure,  and  pasturage;  and  thence  to  the 
farmyard,  and  to  the  splendid  basse-conr  or  poultry- 
yard.  Everything  was  of  the  first  quality,  and  in 
tip-top  order.  He  was  very  curious  in  poultry,  and 
had  all  manner  of  breeds,  from  Cochin  China,  Malacca, 
Siam,  China,  and  I  know  not  how  many  other  countries. 
He  told  me,  in  a  very  laughable  way,  why  he  did  not 


242  VISCOUNT  HARDINGE      [chap,  xxv 

encourage  the  breeding  of  bantams.  It  was  quite 
delightful  to  hear  how  he  talked  with  the  bailiff 
and  with  the  farm-labourers,  and  to  see  his  solicitude, 
his  tenderness  for  a  poor  fellow  who  had  been  very 
ill.  "  You  must  get  up  your  strength,  John  1  A 
little  port  wine  will  do  you  no  harm.  Mr.  Bixey  will 
give  3'ou  a  bottle.  Go  up  to  the  house  and  get  it. 
Take  care  of  yourself,  for  we  can't  do  without  you 
m  the  plantation,  and  up  at  the  summer-house." 
This  was  the  tone  I  invariably  heard  him  use  with 
his  people,  and  it  was  this  that  made  them  so  love 
him.  Always  close  at  his  lordship's  heels  when  out, 
and  always  close  at  his  side  when  in,  w^as  a  very  beauti- 
ful, high-bred,  little  pet  dog,  of  which  he  was  exceed- 
ingly fond.  The  affection  w^as  mutual,  for  never 
was  dog  so  much  attached  to  his  master.  The  poor 
thing  evidently  pined  and  fretted  if  deprived,  only 
for  a  single  day,  of  his  lordship's  company.  He 
had  another  pet  in  the  shape  of  a  very  peculiar 
Nepaulese  dog,  but  he  was  getting  old  and  lazy, 
and  soon  came  to  the  end  of  his  da3^s.  But  the 
place  w^as  full  of  pets — as  we  generally  find  the 
countr}^  residences  of  affectionate  people.  Lady 
Hardinge  had  hers.  Miss  Hardinge  hers,  and  the 
sons  theirs.  Going  round  to  the  stables,  I  was 
introduced  to  his  lordship's  favourite  Arabian,  poor 
Aliwal,  who  had  carried  his  master  at  Moodkee  and 
Ferozeshah,   and   w'ho    now^   frequently   carried   him  .. 

over  the  greensward  of  the  tranquil  park,  and  dow^n  f6f  ■ 

to  the  village  of  Penshurst,  but  seldom  much  farther.  *    i 

He  w^as  a  beautiful  horse,  but  not  above  the  average 
height  of  Arabian  or  Persian  Gulf  horses.  He 
whinnied  before  w^e  got  to  the  stable-door,  and  as 
his  master  petted  him  and  caressed  him  with  hand 
and  voice  he  showed  every  symptom  of  equine 
delight.  "  Aliwal,"  said  his  lordship,  "  is  a  gentle- 
man; he  has  a  deal  of  gallantry;  let  a  man  mount 
him  and  he  starts  off  at  a  bound,  and  then  continues 
to  play  sundry  little  pranks  that  are  not  quite  agree- 

t 


CHAP.  XXV]  WAR  MEMORIALS  243 

able  to  timid  riders.  He  does  this  even  with  me, 
at  times.  But  let  Lady  Hardinge  or  my  daughter 
mount  him,  and  he  is  as  steady  as  a  judge,  at  setting 
off,  and  continues  to  behave  with  the  greatest  discre- 
tion." I  had  afterwards  opportunities  of  witnessing 
Aliwal's  exemplary  behaviour  with  the  ladies. 

The  house  was  delightful ;  not  large,  though  his  lord- 
ship had  recently  made  some  additions  to  it ;  it  was 
tasteful,  simple,  and  most  comfortable — such  a  resi- 
dence as  any  private  English  gentleman  might  possess 
and  occupy.  The  dinner  and  the  evening  went  off 
quite  merrily,  like  every  hour  I  have  since  passed  in 
that  hospitable  place  or  in  his  lordship's  society.  He 
was  full  of  anecdote  himself,  and  he  was  pleased 
with  some  he  drew  from  me.  The  next  morning, 
immediately  after  breakfast,  I  witnessed  for  the  first 
time,  but  far  from  the  last  time,  a  little  domestic 
scene  which  went  to  my  heart,  which  brought  the 
tears  to  my  eyes;  and  which,  b}^  me,  will  not  be 
forgotten  until  sense  and  memory  utterly  fail  me,  or 
until  the  hand  of  death  be  upon  me.  I  would  fain 
recall  it  when  dying,  and  few  things  more  touching 
or  more  holy  could  be  recalled  in  one's  last  moments. 

We  went  into  the  hall  for  family  worship,  his  lord- 
ship leading  the  way,  Prayer-Book  in  hand.  The 
hall  was  hung  round  with  Indian  firearms,  pikes, 
lances,  sabres,  yataghans,  daggers,  bows  and  arrows, 
and  other  implements  of  war  from  India,  Persia, 
Afghanistan,  Nepaul,  and  other  Oriental  regions, 
and  here  and  there  was  hung  the  skin  of  a  tiger  or 
of  some  other  wild  beast.  On  either  side  of  the  hall, 
placed  longitudinall}',  the  breech  to  the  door  at  the 
lower  end  of  the  hall,  and  the  muzzle  pointing  to 
the  other  end,  was  a  magnificent  Sikh  cannon  on  its 
high  and  truly  astonishing  Sikh  carriage.  These 
had  formed  part  of  the  spoil  taken  at  Moodkee  and 
Ferozeshah,  and  the  Honourable  East  India  Company 
had  presented  the  two  guns  to  his  lordship  as  a 
pleasant  souvenir  of  his  Indian  Campaign.     I  have 


244  VISCOUNT  HARDINGE      [chap,  xxv 

seen,  in  my  time,  plent}'  of  guns  of  all  ages,  and  of 
nearly  all  nations,  but  I  have  never  seen  two  such 
pieces  of  ordnance  as  these  Sikh  guns,  or  any  that 
could  be  at  all  compared  with  them,  either  as  to  the 
carriages  or  as  to  the  pieces  themselves.  At  the 
upper  end  of  the  hall,  on  a  line  between  the  two 
cannons,  and  in  front  of  a  magnificent  rug  made 
of  a  tiger's  skin,  was  a  low,  small,  verj-  unpretending 
reading-desk,  and  here  the  brave,  pious-hearted  old 
warrior  took  his  seat,  and  read  the  short  Morning 
Service,  and  a  beautiful  short  prayer  which  I  believe 
to  have  been  his  own  composition.  He  read  wdth 
perfect  emphasis  and  propriet}^;  nay,  he  read  beauti- 
fully. I  wish  a  good  many  of  my  friends  in  the 
Church  could  only  read  like  him.  He  read  so  well 
because  he  felt  so  earnestly  what  he  was  reading. 
And  as  he  read — 

"  His  e^^es  diffused  a  venerable  grace, 
And  charity  itself  was  in  his  face." 

The  juxtaposition,  the  strong  contrast  of  War  and 
Peace,  of  implements  of  slaughter  and  the  prayers 
and  precepts  of  holy  religion,  impressed  me  then, 
as  always  after  when  I  took  part  in  this  family 
worship,  more,  far  more,  than  I  can  express  in  words. 
Those  two  Sikh  guns  had  vomited  death  on  our 
devoted  bands,  and  had  not  been  captured  without  a 
fierce  hand-to-hand  fight,  and  a  great  loss  on  our 
side.  His  lordship  made  me  observe  the  curious  way 
in  which  bright  iron  seats  for  the  drivers  were  placed 
w^ithin  the  wheels,  and  the  all  but  inexplicable  manner 
in  which  the  very  strong  and  thick  iron  tyre,  ap- 
parently without  any  nails  or  rivets  or  screws,  was 
put  on  the  beautifully  constructed  wheel.  I  was 
admiring  one  of  the  fine  tiger-skins,  which  had  been 
so  prepared  that  the  head  of  the  animal,  entire, 
and  in  perfect  preservation,  was  left  attached  to  it. 
"  I  am  proud  of  that,"  said  he,  *'  for  my  son  Charles 
shot  the  animal,  and  gave  me  the  skin." 


CHAP,  xxv]     A  PROFITABLE  FARM  245 

In  the  course  of  the  day  his  lordship  and  I,  and 
the  Httle  white  dog,  went  all  over  the  Park,  and  again 
over  the  farm,  and  the  hasse-cour.  His  lordship  was 
talking  like  a  farmer,  and  from  his  appearance  he 
mi.i3:ht  very  well  have  been  taken  for  one.  He 
wore  an  old  hat,  a  brown  paletot  coat  or  coatee,  a 
brown  stuff  waistcoat,  tweed  trousers,  and  thick- 
soled,  hobnailed  boots. 

When  en  bourgeois  his  dress  was  always  extremely 
plain  and  simple.  He  used  to  say,  **  We  have  now 
only  two  old  dandies  left,  the  Marquis  of  Anglesey, 
and  your  friend  Lord  Strangford.  I  farm  my  land," 
said  he,  ''  for  it  gives  me  occupation,  and  I  have 
always  delighted  in  it.  When  I  was  a  poor,  young, 
struggling  officer,  I  did  not,  like  Napoleon,  sigh  for 
a  city  life,  and  the  means  of  keeping  a  cabriolet  of 
my  own;  but  I  often  longed  for  the  da}^  when  I 
should  have  a  small  estate  in  my  own  native  Kent, 
and  be  able  to  farm  it.  You  know  what  is  commonly 
said  of  gentleman  farmers.  Well,  now  !  I  pretend 
that  I  farm  not  onl}^  without  loss,  but  with  profit, 
notwithstanding  the  pounds  I  now  and  then  spend  in 
experiments.  I  have  an  honest  bailiff;  and  Bixey, 
my  factotum  and  most  faithful  servant,  is  an  excellent 
accountant.  Not  so  much  as  an  e^g  but  is  accounted 
for.  We  don't  sell  much,  but  only  see  what  I  should 
have  to  spend  if  it  were  not  for  my  farm,  poultry- 
yard,  pasturage,  woodland,  and  the  rest.  I  estimate 
that,  according  to  current  market  prices,  and  put 
it  down  as  so  nmch  profit.  We  are  plain  livers,  as 
you  see;  we  almost  live  on  this  estate,  without  having 
recourse  to  butchers  or  bakers,  corn-factors,  or  ha}^- 
dealers.  I  don't  grow  beef,  I  don't  meddle  with 
bulls  or  oxen,  we  have  only  a  few  milch-cows;  but 
I  grow  my  mutton  and  my  pork,  my  chickens  and 
capons,  and  of  these  we  always  have  a  great  plenty, 
and  of  the  best  quality." 

This  time  he  talked  very  little  about  war,  and  not 
at  all  about  politics.       I  have  several  times  heard  him 


246  VISCOUNT  HARDINGE      [chap,  xxv 

say:  "  I  like  to  be  one  thing  at  a  time,  and  all  in  one 
thing;  when  I  am  soldiering  I  like  to  be  all  soldiering. 
When  I  am  in  the  country  I  am  all  countr^^-gentleman 
and  farmer.  I  will  no  more  mix  civil  and  military 
pursuits  than  I  would  dress  myself  half  en  militaire 
and  half  en  botirgeois.  In  some  of  the  Continental 
countries  men  commit  this  last  mistake  in  costume; 
thinking,  I  suppose,  that  they  must  always  carry 
something  of  the  officer  about  them.  Englishmen 
have  better  taste."  In  the  evening  he  related 
some  very  affecting  anecdotes  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  to 
whom  he  had  been  greatly  attached,  and  whose 
memory  he  held  in  reverence. 

His  lordship  w^as  a  convert,  though  a  tardy  one,  I 
believe,  to  Sir  Robert's  Free  Trade  policy;  which  I  was 
not  then,  nor  am  now.  He  listened  with  patience  and 
perfect  good  humour  to  some  of  my  objections,  and 
then  said:  "  Well,  whatever  may  be  the  result  of 
Free  Trade,  Sir  Robert  meant  it  to  be  a  blessing. 
His  intentions  were  always  noble,  generous,  right. 
He  laboured  over  that  scheme  for  years,  his  head 
was  almost  incessantly  occupied  with  it.  No  states- 
man ever  more  ardently  desired  the  good  and  great- 
ness of  his  country;  and  though  Sir  Robert  had  a 
cool,  calculating,  retiring  outward  manner,  he  had 
a  very  ardent  mind,  and  a  very  warm  heart,  as  I 
well  know  !  I  was  most  deepl}'  grieved  at  his  death, 
and  I  shall  never  cease  to  regret  him.  Only  six  days 
before  he  fell  from  his  horse  in  the  Park,  he  was 
here,  sitting  where  you  now  are,  talking  and  chatting 
in  a  pleasant,  animated  way;  and  being,  to  all  appear- 
ance, in  perfect  health.  He  left  this,  with  me,  on 
the  Monday  morning ;  on  the  next  Saturda}^  afternoon 
he  was  carried  home,  a  maimed,  broken,  dying  man  ! 
The  shock  was  great  to  all  of  us,  for  we  had  enjoyed 
much  of  his  intimacy,  and  with  us  he  had  always 
thrown  off  the  ministerial  toga,  and  had  been  cheerful, 
easy,  and  quite  natural.  Lady  Hardinge  can  hardly 
yet  bear  to  hear  him  spoken  of.     Take  my  word  for 


II 


CHAP.  XXV]     BATTLE  OF  FEROZESHAH  247 

it,  Sir  Robert  was  a  good  man,  and  a  pious  man: 
pious  without  ostentation,  cant,  intolerance,  or 
bigotr3\  He  used  so  to  like  to  attend  our  old  Pens- 
hurst  country  church.  It  was  the  last  place  of 
worship  he  was  in." 

The  drawing-room  was  hung  with  a  great  number 
of  very  clever,  spirited  water-colour  drawings  made 
by  Mr.  Charles,  and  chiefly  in  India.  There  were 
views  of  battlefields,  encampments,  military  stations, 
mosques,  temples,  and  pagodas,  all  looking  quite 
Oriental  and  quite  true.  His  lordship  prided  himself 
in  them,  as  he  did  in  every  good  or  clever  thing  that 
proceeded  from  his  children.  The  next  morning  I 
reluctantly  took  my  departure.  In  the  month  of 
December  I  again  went  from  Mr.  Elphinstone's  to 
South  Park.  It  was  the  22nd  of  the  month.  "  You 
come  at  a  right  time,"  said  his  lordship.  "  This  is 
the  fifth  anniversary  of  the  Battle  of  Ferozeshah. 
We  will  celebrate  it  with  an  extra  bottle  of  claret. 
Five  3^ears  ago,  at  this  hour  of  the  morning,  I 
had  plenty  of  work  on  my  hands,  and  plenty  of 
anxiety  in  my  mind  !  I  was  standing  among  the 
captured  Sikh  guns,  surrounded  by  the  wounded, 
dead,  and  dying.  But  let  us  take  a  walk  and 
forget  it." 

After  dinner  there  was  no  toast-giving  or  speech- 
making;  but  his  lordship  calmly  yet  feelingly  spoke 
of  the  slain,  and  very  animatedly  spoke  of  many  of 
the  officers  who  had  displayed  courage  and  ability. 
He  warmly  praised  Colonel  Abbot  of  the  Engineers, 
who  had  constructed  a  bridge  for  the  passage  of 
the  army.  "  If  it  had  not  been  for  Adams,  and  his 
readiness  and  skill,  we  should  have  been  in  a 
mess  !  If  it  had  not  been  for  Abbot  and  his 
bridge,  I  hardly  know  how  the  campaign  might 
have  ended  1" 

I  never  knew  his  lordship  to  be  avaricious  or 
stinted  in  his  praise;  when  he  praised  he  did  it,  as 
it    was    in   his    very    nature    to    do   everything   else. 


248  VISCOUNT  HARDINGE      [chap,  xxv 

heartily,  con  core  ed  anima.  The  next  morning  he  was 
all  the  farmer  again.  I  cannot  avoid  the  conviction 
that  even  trifles  told  of  such  a  man  as  Lord  Hardinge 
must  have  an  interest,  and  be  worthy  of  brief  record 
and  long  remembrance. 

As  I  was  leaving,  on  the  following  afternoon,  and 
as  his  lordship  was  giving  me  his  hand  in  the  trophied 
hall,  he  suddenly  said  in  his  smart,  rapid  manner: 
**  Oh  !  You  have  children  at  home,  and  children 
love  fruit,  which  is  not  easily  obtained  at  this  season 
of  the  year.  We  have  just  received  some  splendid 
pears,  a  present  from  the  Governor  of  Guernsey. 
Bixey,  bring  them  here  and  fill  a  basket  for  Mr. 
MacFarlane."  He  helped,  with  that  ever  active  one 
hand,  to  pack  the  fruit  and  to  secure  it  from  injury 
by  wrapping  it  in  soft  paper.  The  fruit  was  ex- 
quisite, but  we  had  some  scruple  about  eating  it. 
Indeed  we  felt  something  like  the  old  soldier  to  whom 
his  lordship  had  given  a  blackcock.  This  was  a  little 
incident  with  which  he  was  greath^  pleased.  i\t 
one  of  the  railwa^^-stations  between  Penshurst  and 
town,  he  recognized  in  one  of  the  Company's  servants 
a  pensioned  sergeant  who  had  behaved  well  at 
Moodkee  and  Ferozeshah.  He  made  him  a  present, 
and  always  afterwards,  when  the  train  stopped  at 
that  station,  he  had  a  kind  word  for  the  old  soldier. 
Mr.  Charles  Hardinge,  who  was  away  shooting  in 
the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  sent  up  to  London  a 
magnificent  basket  of  game.  The  family  were  down 
at  Penshurst,  and  his  lordship  took  charge  of  the 
basket,  which  he  opened  on  his  way  dow^n,  in  order 
to  give  the  soldier  a  splendid  blackcock.  The  next 
time  he  saw  the  man,  he  asked  him  how  he  and  his 
wife  had  relished  the  bird.  "  Oh,"  said  the  sergeant, 
"  we  could  never  think  of  eating  a  bird  that  was 
killed  by  Mr.  Charles,  and  given  by  Lord  Hardinge  ! 
Instead  of  cooking  the  cock,  we  had  him  stnaffed 
and  put  into  a  glass  case,  and  a  ver}^  handsome  thing 
it  is,  and  a  great  ornament,  and  a  greater  honour 


CHAP.  XXV]     HIS  NOBLE  CHARACTER  249 

to  our  humble  house."  "  My  fine  fellow,"  rejoined 
Lord  Hardinge,  holding  out  a  hand  that  was  not 
empty,  "  you  shall  have  some  other  birds;  and  some- 
thing else  which  I  insist  upon  your  cooking  and  eating, 
and  which  cannot  be  kept,  or  stuffed."  "  Now,"  said 
his  lordship  in  relating  the  stor}^  "  this  poor  sergeant 
must  have  had  heart  and  imagination  within  him. 
An  educated  man  would  hardly  have  paid  a  neater 
compliment,  or  have  done  it  in  a  neater,  shorter 
manner.  That  man  is  fit  for  something  better  than 
porter  at  a  railway-station." 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  poor  sergeant  often  got 
some  of  his  lordship's  mutton  and  poultry.  This 
brave  man's  heart  was  always  so  accessible,  and  his 
hand  always  so  open.  No  one  ever  more  enjoyed 
the  luxury  of  doing  good,  or  the  happiness  of  seeing 
smiling,  happy  faces  around  him.  What  a  different 
world  would  it  be  if  there  were  a  vast  many  more 
Henry  Hardinges  in  it  !  With  anything  base,  sordid, 
meanly  selfish  or  ungenerous,  he  had  no  patience ; 
his  eye  would  flash,  his  lips  quiver,  and  his  voice  go 
into  a  sharp  treble,  at  the  mention  of  any  paltry  act. 
In  his  time  he  had  made  or  found  plenty  of  ingrats, 
but  although  I  have  heard  him  complain  of  this,  or 
rather  of  poor  human  nature,  it  had  no  effect  on  his 
warm  native  benevolence  and  beneficence.  "  A 
man,"  said  he,  "  does  not  do  good  to  get  equal  good 
in  return.  If  he  does  it  is  traffic  and  barter.  I  am 
not  surprised  that  so  many  men  in  public  life  and  in 
high  employment  should  come  to  entertain  a  very 
low  opinion  of  human  nature;  for  they,  of  necessity, 
see  so  much  of  its  selfishness,  insincerity,  trickery, 
and  falsehood.  I  would  rather  not  have  very  much 
to  give  away  in  the  shape  of  Government  places, 
promotions,  or  pensions. 

"  Patronage  is  a  heavy  burden  to  bear,  and  it 
carries  one  into  strange  roads  and  dirty  paths,  and 
it  too  much  familiarizes  the  miud  with  meanness 
and  ingratitude." 


250  VISCOUNT  HARDINGE      [chap,  xxv 

Although  he  is  decided,  firm,  and  even  a  Uttle 
stern  where  any  serious  matter  of  duty  or  any  high 
principle  is  concerned,  no  man  living  or  no  man  that 
I  have  ever  known  has  a  more  feeling,  compassionate, 
tender  heart  than  this  brave,  good,  religious  veteran. 
With  the  courage  of  a  lion  he  has  the  gentleness  of 
a  gazelle.  I  have  myself  seen  numerous  instances 
of  his  tenderness  of  heart  and  quick  sympathy  with 
the  sufferings  of  others.  I  have  also  watched,  at 
times  with  the  tears  starting  to  my  eyes,  the  gentle, 
affectionate  way  in  which  he  speaks  to,  and  in  which 
he  treats,  not  only  his  wife  and  children,  but  also 
his  household  servants,  his  woodmen,  farm-labourers, 
and  all  who  approach  him,  whatever  their  degree. 
This  contributes  immensely  to  render  a  day  or 
two's  stay  at  South  Park,  Penshurst,  a  privilege 
and  a  perfect  delight. 

After    the    murderous    Battle    of    Ferozeshah,    his 
amiable    Christian    character   was    displayed    to    the 
greatest    advantage.     He    visited    all   the    wounded, 
whether  officers  or  private,  and  he  had  a   cheerful 
word,  or  a  word  of  comfort,  for  all.     The  sufferers 
forgot  their  own  pangs  in  the  admiration  his  kindness 
elicited.     He  visited  them  again  and  again;  some- 
times with  one,  sometimes  with   both,  of  his  sons, 
and  he  watched  over  their  welfare  with  a  solicitude 
which  would  not  have  been  surpassed  if  they  had 
all  been  his  own  children.     Every  little  luxury  to 
be  obtained,  no  matter  at  what  cost,  in  the  camp 
bazaar  or  in  the  country,  was  procured  for  them  by 
his  command,  and  by  the  vigilant  care  he  took  in 
seeing    his    orders    obeyed    and    carried    out.     ("  In 
war,"  says  his  lordship,  "it  is  not  enough  to  give 
orders — the  General  must  see  to  their  execution.") 
One  little  homely  incident  is  well  deserving  of  record. 
It  was  Christmas  Eve,  and  his  lordship,  then  only 
Sir   Henry,  in  going  his  rounds,  heard  one  of  the 
wounded  men  saying  to  his  bed-neighbour  and  fellow- 
sufferer,  "  To-morrow  is  Christmas  Day,  but  we  shall 


CHAP,  xxv]      BATTLE  OF  CORUNNA  251 

have  no  mince-pies  1"  "  Yes,  you  shall,  my  fine 
fellow  !"  said  Sir  Henry,  who  forthwith  ordered 
pies  to  be  made;  and  by  the  morrow  more  than  a 
thousand  mince-pies  smoked  upon  the  board,  and 
were  distributed  among  the  wounded  soldiers.  I 
have,  somewhere,  told  this  story  in  print.  The 
following  anecdote  I  have  related  only  in  con- 
versation. 

When  the  surgeons  and  their  assistants  were 
preparing  to  perform  the  necessary  amputations, 
his  lordship,  with  his  son  Charles,  went  through  the 
ward,  to  comfort  and  encourage  the  patients.  One 
poor  fellow,  quite  a  young  man,  said  it  was  hard, 
at  his  time  of  life,  to  lose  a  leg.  "  Oh  !"  said  Sir 
Henry,  "  Here  is  my  son  Charles  who  lost  a  leg 
long  before  he  was  your  age,  and  yet  you  see  how 
well  and  active  he  is,  and  how  well  he  can  walk  and 
ride  !"  Another  poor  soldier  moaned  at  the  idea 
of  having  an  arm  cut  off.  "  Courage,  my  hne  fellow  !" 
said  Sir  Henry.  "  You  see  that  1  have  but  one 
hand  myself.  I  lost  the  other  at  Ligny,  thirty  years 
ago,  and  you  see  I  have  lived  to  be  Governor-General 
of  India.  A  man  may  do  a  great  many  things  with 
one   hand,   and   a  great   many   more   with   only  one 

Twice  when  1  induced  him  to  speak  of  Sir  John 
Moore's  disastrous  retreat,  the  Battle  of  Corunna, 
and  the  death  of  Sir  John,  he  was  affected  even  to 
tears.  The  battlefield,  the  bleeding,  dying  General, 
and  the  mournful  removal  to  the  rear,  seemed  to 
reproduce  themselves,  and  to  be  full,  plain,  and  glaring 
before  his  eyes.  It  will  be  remembered  that  he  was 
at  Sir  John  Moore's  side  when  that  brave  and  good 
man  receivtid  his  death-wound,  that  he  was  the  first  to 
dismount  and  to  raise  Moore  from  the  ground,  that 
he  tried  in  vain  to  .^top  the  eftu^ion  of  blood  with  his 
sash,  and  that  he  helped  his  beloved  General  to  the 
rear.  In  one  of  my  works,  in  describing  his  conduct 
on  thib  occa:iion,  I  had  said  that  it  was  characterized 


252  VISCOUNT  HARDINGE      [chap,  xxv 

by  the  fortitude  of  a  Christian  soldier  mingled  with 
the  tenderness  of  a  woman.  "  Truer  words,"  said 
Sir  George  Murray,  ''  were  never  written  !  Little 
Henry  Hardinge  deserves  all  this  and  a  great  deal 
more  !"  His  lordship  is  naturally  of  a  warm  tempera- 
ment. I  have  seen  him  roused  to  anger,  but  not 
often,  and  never  without  cause. 

Our  neighbour,  old  Farmer  C,  had  for  some  time 
the  management  of  an  estate  that  nearly  adjoins 
South  Park.  As  he  passed  for  a  good  farmer^  and 
as  his  lordship  was  so  ver}^  fond  of  his  own  farm, 
and  of  trying  experiments  and  making  improvements 
in  it,  he  not  infrequently  sent  for  C.  and  still  oftener 
met  him  on  his  rides.  "  I  never  knew  so  affable 
a  gentleman,"  sa3^s  C.  "  Why,  bless  you,  he  would 
talk  with  me  by  the  hour  together,  and  be  just  as 
easy  and  pleasant-like  as  if  he  had  only  been  a  farmer 
like  myself.  And  he,  such  a  very  great  man  !" 
One  morning  that  they  were  riding  together,  side  by 
side,  through  the  Park,  the  farmer's  horse  flung  out 
and  kicked  at  his  lordship's  pet  Arab,  poor  dear 
x\liwal,  who  died  last  year  in  London,  and  now  lies 
buried  in  the  Park.  Luckily  the  kick  fell  upon  his 
lordship's  stirrup-iron,  and  no  great  harm  was  done. 
"  I  could  have  got  off  the  brute  and  have  cut  his 
throat  then  and  there,"  says  the  farmer;  ''  but  his 
lordship  was  not  in  the  least  ruffled;  he  onl}''  smiled, 
and  said :  '  A  lucky  escape,  Mr.  C.  !  If  the  kick  had 
come  a  little  higher  I  might  have  been  minus  a  leg, 
as  well  as  rninits  a  hand.  Let  us  thank  God  that  it 
is  as  it  is.' 

"And  I  do  assure  you,"  says  Farmer  C,  ''that  I 
did  thank  God  wTith  all  my  heart  and  soul." 

Lord  Hardinge  is  as  full  of  religion  as  of  loyalty. 
One  morning,  on  going  into  the  harness-room,  he 
found  one  of  his  grooms  reading  a  detestable,  ultra- 
Radical  weekly  newspaper,  in  which  the  Altar  was 
as  little  respected  as  the  Throne.  ''  My  good  fellow," 
said  he,  ''  if  you  will  read  this  mischievous  trash, 


I 


CHAP.  XXV]      VETERAN  SOLDIERS  253 

read  it  outside,  for  I  will  not  allow  it  to  be  brought 
within  my  lodge-gates.  If  you  must  have  a  news- 
paper here,  the  butler  will  lend  you  a  better 
one." 

It  has  always  been  in  my  taste,  or  in  my  very  nature, 
to  love  a  veteran  soldier,  a  brave,  fighting  one,  better 
than  any  other  sort  of  man.  All  that  I  have  known 
— and  at  home  or  abroad  I  have  known  a  good  many — 
have  been  mild,  modest,  gentle.  I  think  their 
manners  the  perfection  of  manners.  That  of  Lord 
Hardingc  is  charming;  so  easy,  so  thoroughlv  un- 
affected, so  kind,  so  caressing.  .  .  .  My  children 
know,  and  will  never  forget,  the  extent  of  my  obliga- 
tions to  this  family. 

Lord  Hardinge  has  a  ver}'  neat  way  of  turning  a 
note  or  short  letter.  He  can  be  antithetical  and 
epigrammatic.  I  have  some  letters  of  his,  and  I 
have  seen  a  good  many  more,  that  are  quite  models 
for  that  very  useful  and  necessary  sort  of  composition. 
When  my  elder  son  Charles  was  preparing  to  go 
out  to  India  in  the  Company's  service,  his  lordship 
said  that  he  must  have  the  pleasure  of  giving  the 
young  man  his  first  sword.  In  effect,  he  gave  him 
a  great  deal  more  than  that.  A  week  or  two  after, 
being  in  London,  I  received  the  following  note : 
"  You  will  get  the  sword  at  Wilkinson's  in  Pall  Mall. 
It  is  sure  to  be  a  good  one — the  best  that  can  be 
made.  May  your  son  never  draw  it  without  neces- 
sity, nor  sheathe  it  without  honour." 

My  dear  boy  did  sheathe  that  sword  with  some 
honour  after  the  second  storming  of  Pegu,  where  he 
was  one  of  the  first  over  the  palisades,  and  where  his 
regiment  did  nearly  all  the  work.  He  has  the  original 
note  with  him,  and  I  have  no  doubt  it  has  acted  on 
him  as  a  valuable  monitor,  and  that  it  has  given 
him  courage  and  fortitude  in  the  scenes  of  danger, 
fatigue,  and  sickness  that  it  has  been  his  lot  to 
go  through  in  these  last  five  years  and  six 
months. 

18 


254  VISCOUNT  HARDINGE      [chap,  xxv 

At  Calcutta  his  lordship  became  very  much  at- 
tached to  the  late  John  Francis  L3^all,  a  man  of  great 
worth  and  talent,  son  of  the  late  George  Lyall  the 
East  India  Director,  and  consequent!}^  nephew  to 
my  friend.  Dr.  William  Rowe  L3'all,  Dean  of  Canter- 
bury. Under  his  lordship's  administration,  Mr. 
J.  F.  Lyall  became  Judge-Advocate,  and  performed 
the  duties  of  that  office  in  a  most  satisfactory  manner. 
Unfortunately,  he  soon  fell  a  victim  to  the  endemic 
diseases  of  Bengal.  His  interesting  widow,  now  my 
very  kind  friend,  returned  to  England  with  her  only 
child,  an  infant  daughter.  On  the  first  anniversary 
of  poor  L^^all's  death,  his  lordship  was  involved  in 
all  the  turmoils,  labours,  and  anxieties  of  the  Sikh 
campaign;  it  was  the  day  on  which  the  terrible 
Battle  of  Ferozeshah  was  to  be  fought.  Yet  he 
remembered  L3^all,  and  thought  of  his  widow  and 
child,  and  from  that  ver^^  battlefield  he  wrote  her 
a  most  consoling  and  affectionate  letter.  And  when 
his  lordship  gave  up  the  Governor-Generalship  and 
came  home,  among  the  first  persons  he  looked  up 
were  the  widow  and  the  little  girl,  who,  since  then, 
have  been  frequent  guests  at  South  Park.  Mrs. 
J.  F.  L^'all  belongs  to  a  wealthy  and  distinguished 
family.  She  is  sister  to  Sir  J.  F.  Davis,  late  Governor 
of  Hong-Kong,  author  of  our  best  book  about  China, 
and  she  is  herself  well  provided  with  worldly  goods; 
but  presents  from  a  man  like  Lord  Hardinge  cannot 
be  other\^dse  than  acceptable  and  highly  prized. 
I  know  not  how  many  he  has  made  to  the  little  girl, 
who,  by  the  way,  is  now  fast  growing  into  a  fine 
3'oung  woman.  He  has  given  her  one  of  the  prettiest 
Indian  toys  I  have  ever  seen,  the  figure  of  an  elephant 
with  the  howdah  on  its  back,  in  pure  solid  gold, 
and  beautifull}^  wTought.  I  could  adduce  fift}^ 
other  proofs  of  the  tenderness  of  heart  and  gener- 
osity^ of  disposition  of  Field-Marshal  Viscount  Har- 
dinge, whose  name  be  for  ever  honoured  !  Never, 
I    believe,  never    in    his    life,   and   whether  humble 


CHAP.  XXV]     DEATH  AT  PENSHURST  255 

or  exalted,   rich   or    poor,    was   this  admirable  man 
"  sans  chevalerie  pour  le  nialheur." 

Though  very  anxious  about  him,  ever  since  that 
black  Aldershot  Monday  when  he  had  his  fit  and  fell 
to  the  ground  almost  at  Her  Majesty's  feet,  I  certainly 
did  not  expect  the  tidings  of  his  death,  this  heart- 
breaking bereavement,  quite  so  soon.  He  was  so 
temperate,  so  regular  in  all  his  habits,  so  cheerful  and 
so  strong  both  of  body  and  heart,  that  I  fondly  hoped 
that,  being  n^lieved  from  the  terrible  toils  of  the  Horse 
Guards,  and  living  quietly  at  his  own  dear  Penshurst, 
with  plenty  of  tranquil  occupation  and  out-  and 
in-door  amusement,  he  might  yet  last  a  few  3'ears. 
I  had  quite  recently  received  news  that  he  was  wonder- 
fully better,  that  he  had  recovered  the  use  of  his 
hand — that  dear  one  hand — and  could  walk  about 
with  the  help  of  a  supporting  arm.  I  was  arranging 
how  I  could  go  to  him,  having  heard  still  better 
accounts  of  him  from  another  quarter;  when,  yester- 
day evening,  when  calling  upon  an  old  man  who  is 
visiting  Canterbury,  I  learned  to  my  astonishment 
and  grief  that  his  lordship  was  no  more,  and  that 
notice  of  his  death  was  in  the  morning's  Times, 
which  I  had  not  seen. 

The  fact  was  brusqiiement  and  coldly  announced 
by  the  unsympathizing,  selfish  old  man,  who  has 
been  living  ninety-six  years  in  the  world,  without 
ever  having  done  anything  good  or  generous  in  it, 
and  who  is  still  strong  and  hearty,  and  to  all  appear- 
ance likely  to  attain  more  than  his  hundredth  year. 
Yes,  he  lives  on,  and  a  man  like  Lord  Hardinge, 
whose  life  was  one  uninterrupted  course  of  good  and 
generous  deeds,  is  taken  from  us  in  his  seventy- 
second  year.  Fiat  vohtntas  Dei.  The  grief  is  to 
us  who  remain,  not  to  him  who  is  gone.  If  heroic 
courage,  fortitude  to  bear,  kindness  of  heart,  gener- 
osity^ carried  to  munificence,  and  an  entire  Christian 
faith,  entitle  man  to  eternal  bliss,  Henry  Hardin-^t 
is  in  Heaven.     1  almost  staggered  as  I  walked  hoaia 


256  VISCOUNT  HARDINGE      [chap,  xxv 

from  that  ill-omened  visit,  and  through  the  night 
I  could  not  away  with  visions  of  the  deathbed,  and 
of  the  afflicted  family.  This  morning,  26th  September, 
I  received  from  South  Park  the  following  letter 
written  by  Mr.  Bixey,  his  lordship's  confidential 
man:  "  Dear  Sir, — You  will  be  grieved  to  hear  of  the 
decease  of  dear  Lord  Hardinge.  On  Tuesday  morning 
he  was  exceedingly  well,  and  walked  in  from  the 
dining-room  to  the  front  hall,  to  prayers,  all  by  him- 
self. After  prayers,  he  rode  out  on  horseback  from 
eleven  to  tw^elve-thirty,  being  perfectly  well.  He 
walked  across  the  room  only  five  minutes  before 
he  was  seized,  which  took  place  at  1.30  p.m.,  and  at 
eleven  at  night  he  expired,  having  been  unconscious 
from  about  2.30  p.m.  Dr.  Locock  and  Mr.  Gregory 
were  both  with  him,  and  I  believe  he  never  felt  a 
single  pain.  You  will  forgive  my  very  short  note, 
as  I  have  not  time,  but  feeling  3^ou  would  be  anxious 
to  know,  I  have  written  what  I  could." 

Thank  God  that  his  death  was  as  easy  as  his  life 
had  been  glorious  !  With  far  more  truth  than 
Walter  Scott  could  sa}^  it  of  Byron,  I  can  say  of  my 
departed  benefactor  and  friend — 

"  There  will  be  many  peers 
Ere  such  another  Hardinge." 

But  I  must  set  aside  this  book,  or  not  continue  this 
mournful  subject,  until  my  sorrow  be  less  new  and 
keen. 

Canterbury, 

Wednesday. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE  REV.  CHARLES  TOWNSEND 

In  the  time  of  my  great  intimacy  with  dear  Wilham 
Stewart  Rose — chiefl}^  at  Brighton,  November,  1829, 
July,  1835 — Rose's  frequent  guest,  and  one  of  his 
most  cherished  friends,  was  a  humble  country  curate, 
Charles  Townsend,  an  Oxonian. 

Ever3^body  knows  the  quiet  little  village  of  Preston, 
on  the  high  London  Road,  a  mile  or  so  from  Brighton  ; 
and  many  may  have  remarked  the  quiet,  ivy-covered 
parsonage  house,  with  a  little  garden  in  front,  and 
the  gently  ascending  downs  in  the  rear.  It  is 
many  years  since  I  saw  it;  but,  though  so  near  the 
high-road,  it  had  always  to  me  a  delightful  air  of 
seclusion,  seeming  to  hide  itself,  and  to  whisper, 
"  Silence  !"  In  the  churchyard,  close  by,  lie  the 
remains  of  some  who  were  very  dear  to  me ;  of 
the  church  itself,  I  may  say  a  word  or  two 
presently. 

Poor  Townsend,  a  bachelor,  approached  his  fiftieth 
3^ear;  and  had  been  for  many  years,  I  think  as  many 
as  fifteen,  the  occupant  of  the  house,  as  curate. 
The  living  was,  I  believe,  a  fat  one;  but  the  incumbent 
rarely  went  near  it,  leaving  pretty  well  all  the  duties 
to  be  performed  by  Townsend,  on  a  stipend  of  £100 
a  year.  But  the  poor  curate,  in  addition  to  the 
house,  had  the  enjoyment  and  benefit  of  a  good 
garden  which  he  well  knew  how  to  cultivate,  with  a 
paddock  and  a  bit  more  of  glebe.  Many  are  the 
instances  I  have  known  in  rural  non-manufacturing 
districts,  where  the  warmest  affection  existed  between 


258  THE  REV.  C.  TOWNSEND    [chap,  xxvi 

the  resident  parson  and  the  parishioners ;  but  never 
did  I  know  the  case  where  the  affection  was  so  entire 
and  so  warm  as  that  between  Townsend  and  his 
flock. 

Brighton,  close  at  hand,  teemed  with  dissenters 
of  all  sorts,  not  excluding  the  very  worst  sort.  Some 
of  these  had  pantiled*  in  Preston,  but  their  conventicle 
was  shut  up  before  T.  had  been  two  years  in  the 
curacy.  His  scrupulous  attention  to  all  his  duties, 
his  constant  attendance  wherever  there  was  sickness 
or  sorrow,  his  fondness  for  children,  his  gentleness 
of  manner,  his  happy  capabilit}'  of  entering  into  all 
agricultural  matters,  his  blameless,  spotless  life, 
his  numerous  charities — for  out  of  his  little  he  con- 
trived to  give  to  the  poor — his  benevolent  and  really 
beautiful  countenance,  produced  this  effect.  Though 
a  High  Churchman,  and  of  the  ver}'  highest,  and 
though  earnest  in  his  convictions  and  zealous  for 
them,  I  do  not  believe  that  he  ever  talked,  or  so 
much  as  alluded,  to  dissent  or  schism  either  in  the 
pulpit  or  out  of  it.  An  honest,  plain-speaking 
farmer,  whose  life  had  been  passed  in  the  parish, 
said  to  me  one  da}^,  "  I  was  born  and  bred  a  dissenter, 
as  my  father  and  grandfather  had  been  before  me; 
but  when  our  parson  came,  and  mixed  with  us, 
and  set  us  such  an  example  in  all  that  is  good  and 
kind  and  gentle,  I  took  another  course,  and  left  our 
Bible- thumper.  Then,  bless  3'ou,  sir,  he  is  learned, 
and  such  a  gentleman  !" 

We  never  knew  anything  of  his  family  or  con- 
nections, or  previous  associations  and  habits  of  life, 
but  a  "  gentleman,"  in  the  highest  acceptation  of 
the  term,  poor  Townsend  certainly  was.  Add  to 
this,  that  he  was  a  scholar,  and  a  ripe  and  rare  one. 
Rose  considered  him  about  the  best  Grecian  he  had 
ever  known.  He  was  deep  in  Plato — the  most 
perfect    Platonist    I    ever    met    with.     And    it    was 

*  That   is,   built  a  chapel.       Because  dissenting   chapels  were 
often  roofed  with  pantiles,  or  curved  tiles. 


p 


CHAP,  xxvi]     HIS  POEMS  AND  ESSAYS  259 


H 


beautiful  to  see  or  hear  how  he  minified  that  ancient 

i  Greek  philosopher  witli  his  undoubtini?,  most  perfect 

Christianity.     At  collec:e,  and   in   his  solitary  hours 

at  Preston,  he  had  studied  and  acquired  the  best  of 

the    modern   Iani;uages,    and    had    cultivated,    very 

If  successfully,  a  taste  for  En'^lish  poetr3^     The  very 

small    and    almost    unnoticed    volume   of   sonnets — 

alas  !   almost   the  only  thing  he   left   behind   him — 

will  show  how  true  and  deep  a  poet  he  was  in  heart 

'     and  soul.     These  sonnets,  when  first  published,  were 

• ;  cast  aside  as  unintelligible  or  m^-stical ;  and  at  this 

hour,  nearly  twenty  years  after  his  death,  few  seem 

to   be   aware   that   such   a   man   as   Townsend   ever 

wrote  or  lived. 

He  did  not  shoot  or  even  fish;  and  as  for  hunting, 
with  its  expenses,  it  was  quite  out  of  the  question 
with  his  narrow  means;  but  he  had  that  famiharity 
with  sporting  which  is  found,  or  which  was  found, 
in  nearly  every  well-bred  Englishman.  He  kept 
but  one  dog,  the  constant  companion  of  his  walks; 
and  that  dog,  as  an  indication  of  his  Royalist  feeling, 
was  a  spaniel  of  the  true,  legitimate  "  King  Charles  " 
breed. 

He  was  a  most  attentive  and  accurate  observer 
of  the  habits  of  birds  and  beasts,  and  of  changes 
brought  on  by  the  revolving  year,  whether  in  the 
fields,  on  the  neighbouring  downs,  or  in  the  garden 
I  once  read  a  few  pages  of  a  diary  which  he  kept, 
and  which  seemed  to  me  as  delightful  as  the  best 
pages  in  White's  "  Natural  History  of  Selborne." 
The  tone  and  style  were  like  White's,  but  there 
was  great  originality  in  all  the  observations,  and  a 
great  deal  that  was  thoroughly  and  essentially 
Townsend,  and  quite  unlike  the  remarks  of  White, 
or  of  any  other  writer.  1  know  not  if  he  continued 
this  diary,  and  Heaven  knows  what  has  become  of 
the  portion  I  saw  written.  Rose  was  possessed  of 
the  same  taste  for  animated  nature,  and  was  fonder 
than  anv  man  I  ever  knew  of  anecdotes  and  oddities 


26o  THE  REV.  C.  TOWNSEND    [chap,  xxvi 

about    animals.      I     had     always,    had     the     same 
"  twist." 

Many  were  the  long  evenings  we  passed  at  the 
fireside  in  discourse  about  dogs,  bears,  and  monkeys. 
We  had  pleasant  trifling,  humour,  and  drollery,  and 
plenty  of  it — especially  from  dear  Rose — but  I  never 
once  heard  from  either  of  these  rare  and  delightful 
men  any  stilted  commonplace  or  starched  tautolog}'. 
There  was  alwa3's  mixed  with  this  humour  and  droller}^ 
an  under — or  rather,  an  upper — current  of  serious 
thought.  When  Townsend  became  excited  by  his 
subject — poetr}^,  the  purest  of  Greek  philosophy, 
the  Christian  Faith,  or  the  like — the  upw^ard  look 
of  his  eyes  and  his  whole  countenance  were  almost 
seraphic.  Rose  possessed  a  very  clever,  most  true 
head  of  his  friend,  done  in  black  chalk,  while  in  one 
of  these  glorious  moods.  It  was  that  sort  of  face 
that  one  sees  in  a  few  of  the  very  best  of  old  Italian 
pictures,  a  face  that  one  may  look  at  for  an  hour 
at  a  time. 

I  have  seen  among  others,  as  well  as  among 
popular  preachers,  the  heavenward  eyes,  and  an 
attempt  at  the  whole-spiritualized  expression;  but 
in  nearly  every  such  case  I  have  traced  or  suspected 
some  affectation.  Townsend  looked  as  he  did, 
because  he  could  not  help  it;  his  very  soul  rushed 
to  his  e3'es  and  wreathed  his  lips  into  a  smile  that  was 
quite  unearthly.  He  Vvas  no  more  conscious  of  it 
than  is  the  glassy  pool  or  lake  of  the  presence  of  the 
beautiful  landscape  that  it  reflects.  Our  parson  w^as 
a  great  pedestrian,  one  that  would  walk  to  that  well- 
known  ridge  called  the  Devil's  Dyke  and  back  again 
to  Preston  or  to  Brighton  before  breakfast.  Poor 
Rose,  paralyzed  on  one  side,  and  frequently  very  weak, 
could  walk  but  very  little,  and  w^as  scarcel}^  safe 
without  the  support  of  some  friendly  arm.  So  not 
being  able  to  take  sufficient  exercise  on  foot,  and  never 
fancying  to  do  anything  like  other  people,  he  kept, 
not  a  steady  cob  or  stout  pony,  but  a  little  dappled 


CHAP,  xxvi]     EXCURSIONS  WITH  ROSE  261 

donkey,  and  this  he  rode,  his  long  legs  very  nearly 
touching  the  ground. 

This  ass  he  had  christened  Velluti  after  the  cele- 
brated singer,  and  for  reasons  which  I  may  explain 
hereafter.  To  make  the  donkey  go,  and  for  other 
homely  purposes,  he  had  taken  into  his  service  a 
rough,  chubby  young  ploughboy,  who  spoke  the 
Sussex  dialect  in  perfection.  I  still  see  my  whimsical, 
facetious  friend  jogging  along  the  road,  followed,  or 
rather  flanked,  by  this  rustic  squire,  who  had  generally 
a  broad  grin  on  his  face,  produced  by  some  of  his 
master's  innumerable,  interminable  jokes.  I  was 
very  often  of  the  party,  riding  a  capering,  well-bred 
little  mare,  who  with  all  her  frolics  could  never  dis- 
compose the  gravity  of  \'elluti.  The  people  of 
Brighton  were  accustomed  to  the  sight  and  took 
no  notice,  but  Rose  and  his  motiture  and  queer 
attendant,  w'ho  still  wore  his  ploughboy  dress,  very 
often  attracted  the  notice  and  raised  the  laughter 
of  cockney  and  other  incomers  and  visitors. 

It  was  in  the  high  days  of  mail  and  stage  coaches; 
these  vehicles  were  arriving  at  all  times  of  the  day, 
so  that  one  could  seldom  go  along  the  Preston  Road 
without  meeting  some  of  them,  crowded  with  passen- 
gers inside  and  out.  Rose  invariably  joined  in  the 
laugh.  It  was  his  delight  to  call  at  the  Parson's 
nest,  as  he  called  Townsend's  house,  to  saunter  a 
little  in  the  garden,  and  then  to  get  his  friend  to 
accompany  him  on  a  stroll  across  the  breez\'  downs, 
Townsend  walked  and  talked,  and  Rose  talked  and 
rode;  the  parson's  dog  was  far  from  being  an  un- 
noticed or  inconsiderable  member  of  the  party,  and 
Rose  was  always  finding  in  him  some  new  merit  or 
quality.  There  was  one  particular  spot  on  the  downs, 
where  they  slope  away  gently  towards  Shoreham  and 
the  sea,  at  which  the  party  generally  came  to  a  long 
halt,  and  on  w^hich  Rose  invariably  became  discursive 
and  eloquent. 

The  shipping  and   the  boats  put  him  in  mind   of 


262  THE  REV.  C.  TOWNSEND    [chap,  xxvi 

some  scene  of  his  foreign  travels,  and  reminiscence 
led  to  reminiscence,  remark  to  remark,  story  to 
story.  Townsend  knew  so  well  how  to  bring  him 
out,  and  had  so  thorough  a  relish  for  all  that  was 
said.  The  parson  too  had  his  full  share  of  the  talk, 
for  Rose  was  no  monologist.  On  these  excursions 
Townsend  fully  realized  to  one's  mind  the  notion 
of  the  peripatetic  philosopher  and  sage  of  old. 

It  was  a  pity,  it  was  a  shame,  it  was  a  sin,  to  separate 
these  attached,  congenial  spirits,  and  to  tear  the  poor 
parson  from  his  nest;  but  this  happened.  The  old 
incumbent  of  Preston,  whom  Townsend  had  served 
so  many  years,  departed  this  life,  and  the  new 
rector  wanted  the  curac\^  for  a  3'^oung  friend  or  rela- 
tive. The  thought  that  this  might  some  day  happen 
had  long  cast  occasional  clouds  over  poor  Townsend 's 
serenity.  The  honest  parishioners,  to  whom  he  had 
so  endeared  himself,  were  in  despair;  but  repre- 
sentations and  gentle  remonstrances  were  unavail- 
ing; Townsend  was  turned  out  of  his  nest,  and 
put  under  the  hard  necessity  of  seeking  a  living 
elsewhere . 

I  would  not  undertake  to  be  a  Church  reformer, 
but  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  measures  ought  to  be 
adopted  to  prevent  the  occurrence  of  so  hard  a  case, 
which,  I  believe,  has  not  been  uncommon.  Ought 
not  length  of  service,  efficiency  of  ministration,  and 
a  good  man's  friendships,  habits,  and  associations 
be  taken  into  account  ?  The  only  curac}'  that  could 
be  found  for  him  was  one  in  crovv'ded,  noisy,  smoky 
London,  and  in  one  of  the  very  worst  parts  of  London 
— over  the  water,  in  Southwark — and  poor  Townsend 
could  not  afford  to  wait.  On  accepting  what  was 
offered  to  him,  Rose  predicted  what  would  happen: 
"  He  \\dll  not  live  a  year  !  The  change  is  too  great  ! 
He  has  been  accustomed  so  long  to  pure  air  and  to 
a  quiet,  country  life  !  What  will  he  do  in  those 
close  streets  in  the  Borough,  among  manufactories, 
warehouses,  wharves,  and  shops,  and   among  those 


CHAP.xxvi]    A  PRESTON  WALL-PAINTING    263 

specimens  of  every  rascality  and  vice  that  disgrace 
the  capital  ?  He  has  been  accustomed  onl}^  to  an 
inoffensive  rural  population.  Here  he  was  so  happy; 
in  London  he  will  be  broken-hearted.  He  is  not  made 
of  stern,  but  of  the  i^entlest  stuff,  he  is  as  innocent 
as  a  child,  and  as  delicate  and  as  sensitive  as  a  lady. 
They  are  killing  ni}^  poor  parson,  by  thus  uprooting 
and  transplanting  him  !  Townsend  will  certainly  die  !" 

Efforts  were  made  to  procure  him  another  curacy 
in  the  country.  Rose  exerted  his  influence  with 
Lord  and  Lad}^  Holland,  with  his  own  elder  brother. 
Sir  George  Rose,  and  with  others ;  and  I  believe  that 
Mr.  Hallam,  the  historian,  at  his  instance,  applied 
in  several  quarters ;  but  it  was  not  to  be,  or  not  to  be 
in  time;  Townsend  fell  sick,  pined  awa}',  and  died  in 
little  more  than  a  year  after  his  removal  from  Preston. 
Soon  after  his  death  and  burial  a  suitable  rural  curacy 
presented  itself.*     Too  late  ! 

Townsend  had  much  taste  and  knowledge  in 
church  antiquities  and  in  general  archaeology.  He 
was  a  discoverer  in  this  way.  He  found  and  brought 
to  light,  in  the  chancel  of  Preston  Church,  a  ver}' 
curious  old  wall-painting  of  the  martyrdom  of  Thomas 

*  MacFarlane,  I  am  glad  to  say,  was  misinformed,  or  his 
memory,  after  twenty  years,  played  him  false.  The  Rev.  C. 
Townsend,  after  leaving  Preston  in  1837,  was  presented  by  Lord 
Egremont  to  the  living  of  Kingston-by-the-Sea,  near  Brighton. 
He  surA'ived  till  the  29th  January,  1870,  and  was  buried  in 
Preston  churchyard,  by  the  side  of  liis  father  and  mother.  On 
a  flat  tombstone  is  the  following  inscription: 

"  The  Revd.  Charles  Townsend,  M.A..  formerly  curate  of 
Preston  with  Hove,  and  for  33  years  Rector  of  Kingston-by- 
Sca.     Born  4  Dec,  1789;  died  29  Jan.,  1S70. 

"  Within  this  grave  a  friend  much  valued  lies, 
Learn'd,  yet  familiar;  and  tho'  simple,  wise. 
In  cheerful  quiet  passed  his  happy  life, 
Safe  from  ambition  and  disturbing  strife. 
The  heart's  affections  and  the  Muses'  song 
Cheered  every  footstep  as  he  moved  along. 
Sought  not  the  spoils  that  wealth  and  honour  gave, 
But  passed  with  loftier  wishes  to  the  grave." 

For  this  information  I  am  indebted  to  the  late  Prebendary 
Moor,  and  to  the  Rev.  B.  Foster  Palmer,  Curate  of  Preston. 


264  THE  REV.  C.  TOWNSEND    [chap,  xxvi 

a  Becket.  With  the  ordinary  churchwarden  barbar- 
ism the  ancient  picture  and  the  whole  of  the  wall 
had  been  covered  for  generations  under  a  thick  coat- 
ing of  plaster  an  whitewash.  This  our  friend  caused 
to  be  carefully  removed.  A  correct  drawing  w^as 
then  made  from  the  picture.  The  drawing  was 
engraved,  and,  with  a  short  account  by  Townsend, 
was  published  in  a  volume  of  the  Archceologia. 
This  discovery  was  quite  an  event  in  the  smooth, 
unadventurous  life  of  our  country  curate.  In  con- 
versation he  frequently  alluded  to  it  with  a  satis- 
faction not  altogether  unmingled  with  pride. 

In  his  rh3^med  epistle  from  Brighton  to  John 
Hookham  Frere  at  Malta,  Rose,  three  or  four  years 
before  Townsend 's  death,  drew  an  admirable,  living 
portrait  of  his  friend  and  frequent  guest,  the  parson. 

To  THE  Rt.  Hon.  Hookham  Frere  in  Malta.     Brighton,  1834 
From  "  Rhymes,"  by  William  Stewart  Rose,  Brighton,  1837 

"  Here,  oft  descending  through  a  double  swell, 
I  dive  into  a  little  wooded  dell, 
Embosoming  a  hamlet,  church,  and  yard, 
Whose  graves,  except  a  few  of  more  regard, 
(Where  wood  some  record  of  the  dead  preserves. 
Or  harder  stone)  are  ridged  with  humble  turves, 
O'ergrown  with  greenwood  is  the  Curate's  rest; 
So  screened,  it  might  be  called  the  parson's  nest, 
The  chancel  of  the  Church  in  ochry  stain 
Shows  Becket's  death,  before  the  altar  slain; 
And  here,  in  red  and  yellow  lines  we  trace 
A  stiffness  which  appears  not  out  of  place. 

And,  as  in  Grecian  vase,  an  antique  grace;  ^ 

"While  in  the  knightly  murderers'  mail  we  read  -» 

The  painter's  toil  coeval  with  the  deed.  'M 

Much  joys  the  Curate  to  have  first  displayed  f> 

This  rude  design,  wdth  roughcast  overlaid.  m 

Simple  are  all  his  joys:  books,  garden,  spaniel !  'B 

Yet  lions  he  for  Truth  would  dare,  like  Daniel.  ^? 

Keen  in  the  cause  of  Altar  and  of  Throne, 
My  peerless  parson,  careless  in  his  own. 
Says  m  his  heart  (what  poets  do  but  sing), 
'  That  a  glad  poverty's  an  honest  thing.' 
Dear  is  his  dog,  whom  mouth  of  darkest  dye 
Makes  dearer  in  a  Tory  Master's  eye. 
Such  is  the  pair:  I  to  the  man  demur 
Upon  one  point  alone;  he  calls  me  '  Sir  ' 


'M 


i 


cHAP.xxvi]    JOHN  HOOKHAM  FRERE  2.65 

This  priest  and  beast  oft  join  me,  where  no  harrow 
Has  raked  the  ground,  by  bottom,  hill,  or  barrow; 
Or,  since  new  path  and  place  new  pleasure  yield. 
We  rove  by  sheep-walk  wide,  and  open  field, 
Where  the  red  poppy  and  pale  wheaten  spike 
Are  mingled,  to  that  ridge  miscalled  the  dyke. 
Deemed  by  our  clowns  a  labour  of  the  devil; 
A  height  whose  frowning  brow  o'erhangs  a  level, 
Where  the  glad  eve  field,  farm,  and  forest  sees. 
And  grey  smoke  curling  through  the  greenwood  trees. 


CHAPTER    XXVII 

BEAU  BRUMIVIELL 

There  has  been  nothing  Hke  a  good,  fair  account  of 
this  Autocrat  of  the  Dandies. 

Captain  Jesse,  who  pubHshed  two  volumes  of 
Memoirs  about  him  some  years  ago,  could  never  have 
seen  Brummell,  and  knew  vevy  little  of  his  life, 
character,  and  conversation ;  while  the  little  he  did 
know  was  onl}^  by  hearsay.  Raikes's  account,  just 
published  (1856),  is  b}'  far  the  fairest  I  have  seen, 
and  3'et  it  scarcely  does  justice  to  Brummell's  wit 
and  humour,  and  two  or  three  things  seem  to  me 
incorrectl}'  stated.  Brummell  ended  his  days  at 
Caen,  and  would  have  ended  them  in  downright 
miser}^  but  for  the  Soeurs  de  Charite.  The  w^ay 
in  which  he  lost  the  consulship  was  this.  Being 
weary  of  Caen  and  of  having  nothing  to  do  there, 
he  represented  to  Lord  Palmerston  that  a  British 
Consul  was  hardly  wanted  in  that  place,  and  that  he 
was  very  desirous  of  getting  a  change  by  being 
appointed  to  some  other  place  where  there  were 
English  interests  to  attend  to,  and  where  he  could 
be  useful  and  earn  the  salary  he  received  from  his 
country.  Palmerston  abolished  the  Caen  Consulship, 
but  would  not  give  Brummell  another.  If  Brummell 
had  not  confidently  counted  on  being  employed  else- 
w^here,  he  would  never  have  written  this  letter  to 
the  Foreign  Secretary.  The  pay  at  Caen  was  ;^30o 
a  year;  and  when  it  was  so  suddenly  suspended,  the 
aged  man  of  fashion,  once  the  constant  companion 
of    Royalt}',  was   left    penniless.     There  were    some 

266 


CHAP,  xxvii]    THE  DANDIES'  INFLUENCE     267 

other  cases  in  which  Viscount  Pahnerston  was 
equally  hard.  Pensions  from  the  Crown  have  alwa^^s 
been  considered  as  safe  from  the  grip  of  creditors. 
They  are  given  because  the  recipients  are  poor  and 
are  likely  to  be  embarrassed.  Yet,  on  the  applica- 
tion of  a  set  of  Jews  and  other  usurers  and  cheats, 
Palmerston  stopped  and  sequestrated  the  pension 
of  Lady  Hester  Stanhope,  thus  reducing  her  to 
cruel  straits  in  her  Syrian  retreat.  More  lenity 
might  have  been  expected  from  him,  as  Palmerston 
has  been  nearly  all  his  life  in  debt  and  difficulties  him- 
self. Until  recently,  when  his  wife  had  an  accession 
of  property,  he  was  considered  one  of  the  very  worst 
"  pa3^ers  "  in  all  London.  I  once  heard  a  St.  James's 
Street  hatter  tell  his  valet  that  he  would  not  send 
another  hat  until  his  lordship  should  have  paid  for 
the  many  hats  he  had  already  had.  But  London 
used  to  ring  with  stories  about  Palmerston  and  his 
duns,  and  about  his  ingenious  devices  to  put  off 
paying.  About  the  same  time  poor  Lord  Alvanley 
was  abundantly  furnishing  similar  matter  for  town 
talk. 

As  boy  and  j^outh  I  frequently  saw  Beau  Brummell 
in  the  parks  and  other  regions  of  the  West.  Though 
an  exquisite  dand}',  he  never  seemed  to  me  to  be 
overdressed  or  stiff,  or  in  any  way  ginnde.  His 
carriage  was  easy,  free,  and  manl}'.  He  was  a 
remarkably  well-made  man,  but  his  face  was  scarcely 
equal  to  his  figure.  I  quite  agree  with  m}^  friend 
Mountstuart  Elphinstone  that  English  society  owed 
a  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  dandies.  When  they 
triumphantly^  took  the  field,  and  for  a  good  many 
years  previously,  our  young  nobility  and  gentry 
adopted  the  dress,  and  too  often  the  language  and 
manners,  of  the  coach-box,  stable,  or  turf.  To  be 
fashionable,  was  to  dress  like  a  coachman  or  groom. 
I  am  quite  old  enough  to  remember  how  widely 
this  coarse,  bad,  vulgar  taste  prevailed.  It  was 
checked  at  about  the  time  the  Regency  of  George, 


268  BEAU  BRUMMELL      [chap,  xxvli 

Prince  of  Wales,  commenced  in  1810;  but  it  took 
the  dandies  more  than  seven  years  to  subdue  and 
expel  it.  It  was  through  Brummell,  Luttrell,  Sir 
Harry  Mildmay,  Lord  Kinnaird,  and  a  few  others — 
for  the  original  school  was  very  limited  in  number — 
that  our  young  men  of  fortune  and  fashion  began  to 
dress  like  gentlemen.  If  some  of  them  overdid  it, 
and  were  too  fastidious  and  by  far  too  extravagant, 
this  could  scarcely  be  said  of  Brummell.  The  stories 
told  of  his  notions  of  expense  in  dress  were  mere 
jokes,  and  were  never  intended  by  him  to  be  taken 
seriousl}'. 

One  of  these  tales  was,  for  a  long  time,  in  everyone 's_ 
mouth.  A  wealth}',  old-fashioned  country  squire, 
who  had  a  son  and  heir  to  launch  into  the  gay  world, 
asked  Brummell,  one  day,  what  he  ought  to  allow 
young  hopeful  for  his  tailor's  bills,  or  for  what  annual 
sum  the  youngster  might  be  well  and  fashionably 
dressed  ?  "  Oh  !"  said  Brummell  after  some  con- 
sideration, and  with  a  very  solemn  countenance, 
"  with  the  strictest  economy — mind,  I  say  the 
strictest  economy — it  may  be  done  for  £1 ,000  a  year." 

I  saw  the  Beau,  in  full  feather,  rather  late  one 
afternoon,  in  the  spring  of  the  year  181 5,  the  day 
before  I  took  my  departure  for  Portugal.  He  was 
evidently  just  out  of  bed ;  or  rather,  quite  fresh  from 
the  toilette.  So  late  a  sitter  could  hardly  be  an 
early  riser.  He  used  to  sa}"  that,  whether  it  was 
summer  or  winter,  he  always  liked  to  have  the  morning 
w^ell-aired  before  he  got  up. 

A  friend  of  W.  S.  Rose  once  gently  reproved 
the  Beau  for  passing  so  many  of  the  daylight  hours 
in  bed. 

"  Dear  me  !"  said  Brummell.  "  Don't  you  know 
that  I  am  quite  a  reformed  man  ?  Now,  I  always 
begin  to  rise  with  the  first  muffin  bell  !"  The  muffin 
bell  is,  I  believe,  quite  silenced  through  my  friend  Ben 
Hawes  and  his  London  Street  Police  Bill,  or  Bills. 
At  least,  I  never  hear  it  in  the  West  End  of  London ; 


CHAP,  xxvii]  AT  CALAIS  269 

but  in  1 8 1 5  the  muffin  bells  began  to  be  heard  between 
four  and  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 

The  next  time,  being  the  last  time  of  all,  that  I  saw 
Brummell  was  at  an  hotel  in  Calais,  in  the  autumn 
of  1820,  as  I  was  on  my  way  to  the  south  of  Italy. 

H.  and  A.,  two  very  considerable  dandies  of  that 
day,  who  had  crossed  over  with  me  from  Dover, 
were  pupils  and  almost  idolaters  of  Brummell. 
They  invited  him  to  dinner,  but  he  was  engaged,  if 
I  remember  right,  with  Scrope  Davies,  who  had  taken 
refuge  in  that  dull  old  French  town.  However,  he 
came  in  towards  the  small  hours,  and  sat  until  long 
after  sunrise. 

There  was  a  terrible  change  in  other  things  besides 
the  financial  ones ;  but  still  he  was  an  elegant,  striking 
man,  and  became  very  amusing  and  rather  animated, 
though  he  drank  but  moderately.  At  times,  however, 
I  thought  I  saw  a  look  of  sadness  and  despondency. 
There  was  reason  for  it.  At  this  moment  he  was 
cruelly  embarrassed.  Before  H.  left  for  Paris,  he 
was  obhged  to  administer  to  some  of  Brummell's 
pressing  wants,  and  H.  himself  was  rather  "  hard  up." 
Brummell's  anecdotes  were  innumerable.  They  were 
all  told  with  admirable  humour,  and  most  of  them 
with  good  nature.  I  can  remember  only  two  that 
were  spiteful,  or  calculated  to  give  pain  to  deserving 
persons,  and  these  two  I  shall  certainly  not  tell. 
After  this  symposium,  I  could  understand  a  good 
deal  of  the  secret  of  Brummell's  extraordinary  success 
and  influence  in  the  highest  society.  He  was  a 
vast  deal  more  than  a  mere  dandy;  he  had  wit  as 
well  as  humour  and  drollery,  and  the  most  perfect 
coolness  and  self-possession.  He  did  not  speak 
harshly  of  his  ci-dcvant  friend  the  Regent,  by  this 
time  His  Majesty  George  IV.;  on  the  contrary,  he 
related  several  clever  and  two  or  three  kind  things 
of  him,  and  gave  him  credit  for  a  great  deal  of  natural 
ability  and  esprit.  He  confirmed  what  Raikes  and 
others  have  said  of  the  Prince's  extraordinary  powers 

19 


270  BEAU  BRUMMELL      [chap,  xxvii 

of    mimicry.     "  If    his    lot    had    fallen    that    way," 
said  he,  "  he  would  have  been  the  best  comic  actor 
in    Europe."     Brummell   confessed   to   the   story   of 
the    "  stout    friend,"    and    to    his    threat,    after    his 
quarrel  with  the  Prince,  to  go  down  to  Windsor  and 
make  the  old  people  fashionable;  but  he  emphatic- 
ally denied  that  other  common  tale,  "  George,  ring 
the  bell  !"     "I  knew  the  Prince  too  well,"  said  he, 
*'  ever  to  take  any  kind  of  hberty  with  him  !     Drunk 
or  sober,  he  would  have  resented  it,  with  a  vengeance  ! 
His   vindictive   spirit — and    he   could   be   vindictive 
about  trifles — was  the  worst  part  of  him ;  and  where 
he  once  took  a  spite  he  never  forgave.     There  might 
have  been  twenty  good  reasons  for  the  rupture,  but 
the  world   always  guesses  wTong  in  these  matters." 
If  m}^  observations  were  shrewd  and  correct,  I  should 
say  that  at  this  period  the  Beau  did  not  quite  despair 
of  a  reconciliation,  or  at  least  of  some  token  of  the 
Royal  bounty.     In  the  following  year,  1 82 1 ,  when  the 
King,  on  his  way  to  Hanover,  landed  at  Calais,  he 
put  himself  in  his  way,  in  the  hope  that  he  might  be 
noticed.     I    v/as    told    that    many    of    the    Enghsh 
purposely  made  room  for  him,  sharing  in  his  hope 
and   expectation   that    His   Majesty  would   at   least 
recognize  him  with  a  gracious  smile,  which  might  have 
the  effect  of  tranquilhzing  some  of  his  Calais  creditors ; 
that  the  King,  who  almost  touched  him  as  he  passed 
up  the  pier,  must  have  seen  him;  that  he  turned  his 
Royal  head  another  way ;  and  that  Brummell  turned 
as  pale  as  a  ghost.     Falstaff  was  not  so  sad  when 
turned  off  by  "  sweet   Prince  Hal."     Fifteen  years 
after  this,  in  1836,  my  friend  W.  P.,  in  the  course  of 
one   of  his   Cambridge   long  vacation   rambles,   put 
up  at  Caen  for  a  few  days,  m  the  very  comfortable 
Hotel  d'Angleterre.     T\sice  at  the  table  d'hote  he 
noticed  a  very  quiet,  very  refined,  and  on  the  whole 
ver}^  interesting-looking,  elderly  gentleman,  to  whom 
some  of  the  guests  and  all  the  servants  of  the  house 
seemed  to  pay  unusual  attention. 


CHAP,  xxvii]     LAST  DAYS  IN  FRANCE  271 

W.  P.  took  him  for  a  French  gentleman  of  the  old 
school,  or  for  some  retired  diplomatist  whose  life 
had  been  spent  in  the  highest  society ;  but  on  making 
inquiry  he  was  told  that  this  was  poor  Beau  Brummell, 
and  that  he  was  then  "  poor  indeed."  W.  P.,  being  a 
remarkably  quiet,  modest,  retiring  person,  made  no 
attempt  to  draw  him  out;  but  he  was  interested  by 
his  distinguished  manners,  his  humility,  and  apparent 
submission  to  his  fate.  Even  the  French  frequenters 
of  the  table  d'hote,  or  most  of  them,  seemed  to  be 
aware  that  poor  Brummell,  who  could  now  scarcely 
pay  for  his  cheap  dinner,  had  lived  in  all  the  splendour 
of  London,  and  had  been  for  years  the  almost  con- 
stant companion  of  the  Regent.  A  few  months 
later,  my  old  friend,  Major ,  then  fast  approach- 
ing the  end  of  his  days,  put  up  at  the  same  hotel, 
and  went  to  dine  at  the  same  table  d'hote.  In  the 
doorway  he  ran  against  Brummell,  whom  he  had  not 
seen  for  twenty  years  or  more.  They  had  been 
rather  intimate  in  the  days  of  the  Beau's  prepotency, 
for  the  Major  had  been  a  man  of  Fashion;  and  was 
always,  and  even  to  the  last,  when  very  penitent 
for  past  misdeeds,  a  man  of  pleasantry  and  wit. 

They  immediately  recognized  each  other.  "  On 
est  Men  change,^^  said  Brummell,  "  voild  tout  T^  He 
uttered  no  complaint,  but  could  not  conceal  his 
poverty  and  painful  embarrassments.  He  was  no 
longer  the  scoffer  that  he  had  been;  he  even  seemed 
to  entertain  deep,  religious  convictions. 

I  believe  that  he  died  professing  the  faith  of  the 
Roman  Cathohc  Church.  The  last  friends  he  had 
on  earth  were  the  Sisters  of  Charity.  Raikes  de- 
plores that  by  his  precept  and  example  he  demoralized 
and  ruined,  in  more  senses  than  one,  many  young 
men  of  family  and  fortune.  But  is  it  not  at  least 
probable  that  these  extravagant,  unthinking  fellows 
would  have  run  the  road  to  ruin  if  they  had  never 
known  Brummell;  and  that,  without  his  acquaint- 
ance and  tuition,  their  vices  would  only  have  been 


272  BEAU  BRUMMELL      [chap,  xxvii 

more  gross  and  disgusting  ?  For  a  long  time  there 
was  a  popular  belief  that  the  Beau  was  of  very  low 
birth.  Even  now  it  is  not  rare  to  meet  people  who 
believe  that  he  was  the  son  of  a  footman  or  valet. 
Brummell  was  a  "  gentleman  by  birth  as  well  as  by 
education."  His  father  had  considerable  West  Indian 
property,  at  a  time  when  such  estates  were  worth 
holding.  He  was  a  man  of  great  address  and  business 
ability,  the  most  intimate  friend  and  confidential 
adviser  of  Lord  North;  to  whom,  during  his  lordship's 
Premiership,  he  acted  as  Private  Secretar}^  All 
the  time  that  Lord  North  remained  Prime  Minister, 
Brummell  p^re  was  courted  by  the  highest  of  the  land, 
and  by  all  who  looked  for  employment  or  ministerial 
patronage.  Some  of  Warren  Hastings's  letters,  which 
have  been  published,  sufhciently  show  the  importance 
of  Brummell  pere,  and  the  consideration  in  which  he 
was  held  by  the  first  and  greatest  of  our  Governors- 
General  in  India. 

My  friend,  the  late  Elijah  Impey,  son  of  the  Indian 
Judge,  the  pet  of  Warren  Hastings,  had  in  his 
possession  many  original  letters  which  still  more 
clearly  demonstrated  the  political  importance  of  the 
Beau's  father.  In  one  of  these  letters,  the  Governor- 
General,  writing  from  Calcutta  to  a  friend  in  London, 
said,  "  See  Mr.  Brummell  as  soon  as  you  can,  for 
he  is  active  and  intelligent,  and  has  more  influence 
than  any  man  with  Lord  North."  This  Brummell 
p^re  left  a  good  fortune  to  be  divided  among  his 
children.  The  Dandy,  a  younger  son,  had  between 
;£40,ooo  and  £50,000  for  his  share.  Raikes  says 
;^3o,ooo;    but    Brummell   always    named    the   larger 

sum,  and  Major had  reasons  for  believing  that 

his  account  was  the  true  one.  The  Brummell  family 
still  hold  a  goodly  estate  in  Essex,  where  they  were 
known,  a  few  years  ago,  to  my  friend  Dr.  W.  Lyall, 
now  Dean  of  Canterbury.  In  the  winter  of  1844, 
there  was  an  old  gentleman  staying  at  Hastings, 
and  driving  a  four-in-hand.     I  saw  him  every  day 


CHAP,  xxvii]  SNUFF-BOXES  273 

for  a  week  or  two;  he  was  attired  in  the  "  slap-bang  " 
Jehu  style,  and  had  always  at  his  side  on  the  coach- 
box a  tall,  masculine-looking  woman,  wearing  a 
light  drab  greatcoat  with  capes.  One  afternoon 
I  inquired  of  Lord  W.  F.  who  the  pair  might  be. 
"  Don't  3^ou  know  them  ?"  said  he.  "  The  driver 
is  Beau  Brummell's  brother;  the  lady  on  the  coach- 
box is  the  coachman's  daughter." 

This  is  like  standing  up  in  judgment  against  a 
deceased  relative;  the  prosperous  squire  was  repro- 
ducing and  maintaining  what  the  poor  Dandy  had 
put  down.  What  would  the  Brummell  have  thought 
of  these  coats  and  capes  ?  *The  manners  of  both 
father  and  daughter  appeared  to  be  about  as  rough 
as  their  top-covering.  Raikes  correctly  describes 
the  Dand3^'s  taste,  or  rather  passion,  for  costly  or 
curious  snuff-boxes.  When  the  light  wooden  Scottish 
box,  called  the  "  Lawrence  Kirk  "  box,  with  the 
ingenious,  invisible  hinge,  first  came  out,  he  immedi- 
ately purchased  one.  A  day  or  two  after,  he  was 
dining  at  Carlton  House,  where,  among  other  person- 
ages, the  Earl  of  Liverpool,  the  Premier,  and  rather  a 
solemn,  hard,  severe  man,  was  present.  At  the 
proper  moment,  the  Beau  introduced  his  new  snuff- 
box, praising  its  lightness  and  prettiness,  and  doubt- 
ing whether  any  of  them  would  find  out  the  hinge, 
or  know  how  to  open  it. 

The   Regent  tried,   but  soon  gave  it  up,  with   a 

d .     When  the  others  had  tried   and  failed,  the 

starch  Prime  Minister  essayed  his  skill,  taking  up  a 
knife  to  help  him.  "  My  lord  !"  cried  Brummell. 
"  Allow  me  to  observe  that's  not  an  oyster,  but  a 
snuff-box!"  The  Prince  laughed  out  lustily;  the 
Premier,  looking  grave,  laid  down  the  box,  and  said 
there  was  no  opening  it. 

Brummell,  like  that  late  facetious  Canon  of  St. 
Paul's,  the   ever   memorable   Sydney  Smith,  had    a 

*  From  here,  to  nearly  the  end,  to  the  phrase  "  married  to  the 
gout,"  in  M.'s  handwriting. 


274  BEAU  BRUMMELL      [chap,  xxvii 

knack  of  dropping  into  houses  and  parties  to  which 
he  had  not  been  invited,  and  then  pretending  it 
was  all  through  absent-mindedness  or  some  mistake. 
A  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomson,  rather  new  to  "  St.  James's 
air,"  gave  a  grand  rout,  and  purposety  and  maliciously 
omitted  inviting  the  King  of  the  Dandies,  of  whose 
satirical  tongue  they  stood  in  dread.  ''  This  Brum- 
mell,"  said  Mr.  T.,  "  may  have  the  impudence  of 
the  devil,  but,  as  sure  as  my  name's  Thomson,  I 
will  show  him  a  bit  of  my  mind  if  he  comes  to  our 
party  without  an  invite  !  I  will  show  him  the  w^a}' 
to  the  door  in  a  jiffy  !" 

Vain  boast  !  Brummell  went,  having  previously 
communicated  his  intention  to  some  of  the  Dandies 
who  had  been  invited.  As  his  name  was  being 
telegraphed  from  the  hall  to  the  drawing-room,  the 
Beau  tripped  up  the  stairs.  On  the  very  threshold 
of  the  outer  saloon  stood  Thom_son,  as  stern  and 
as  determined-looking  as  Gog  or  Magog.  With  his 
blandest  smile  and  with  extended  fingers,  the  Beau 
said,  in  dulcet  tone,  "  What  !  You  here,  Mr.  Thom- 
son ?  I  did  not  expect  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you 
to-night.  How  is  Mrs.  Thomson  ?  Ha  !  There  she 
is,  and  looking  remarkably  well  !"  Here  he  kissed 
the  tip  of  his  exquisitely  gloved  hand  to  the  lady, 
now  close  to  the  door,  and  returning  his  smile  and 
salute.  Thomson  was  quite  nonplussed,  and  before 
he   could   recover   himself  or   say   a   single   syllable 

beyond  "  Sir  !"  the  Marquis  of ,  Lord ,  and 

two  or  three  other  Dandies,  crenie  de  la  creme,  and 
devoted  lieges  of  Brummell,  arrived  and  gathered 
round  their  chief,  and  advanced  with  him  into  the 
drawing-room,  bowing  to  the  hostess,  who  was  seen 
whispering  to  her  husband.  She  must  have  made  it 
clear  to  Thomson  that  it  would  never  do  to  insult 
a  man  who  had  such  great  friends  as  Beau  Brummell. 
When  that  hero  had  spent  half  an  hour  in  going  round 
the  saloons  and  in  talking  with  those  w^ho  he  thought 
worth   talking   to,   he   coolly  went   up   to   the   host, 


CHAP,  xxvii]    THE  BEAU'S  ASSURANCE         275 

who  was  now  quite  cooled  down,  and  said:  "  Dear 
me    Mr.  Thomson,  I  find  I  have  made  a  mistake  ! 
I  was  invited  to  a  Mrs.  Johnson's  !    The  names  are 
so  much  ahke  !     John's  son,  Tom's  son  !     Johnson, 
Thomson  !     It  is  so  easy  to  mistake  !"     Some  of  the 
Dandies    laughed,   some    of    the    fashionable    ladies 
'      tittered ;  Thomson  felt  that  the  best  thing  he  could 
do  was  to  join  in  the  laugh;  and  Mrs.  T.,  sailing  up, 
said  "  they  were  only  too  happy  at  a  mistake  that 
had  procured  them  the  pleasure  of  Mr.  Brummell  s 
company."     The    Beau   chatted   a   few   minutes   to 
the  smihng,  benignant,  highly-flattered  hostess,  and 
then  went  his  way  to  another  fashionable  gathering. 
Mrs.  T.  took  care  that  he  should  have  an  invitation 
to  all  her  future  parties. 

The  late  Earl  of  W.,  Lady  J.'s  papa,  but  very 
unhke  his  always  charming  daughter,  was  scarcely 
a  man  to  be  joked  with.     He  was  proud,  punctilious 
starch,    and    grim,   expecting   more   deference   and 
peer-worship  than  he  always  obtained. 

In  fining  their  houses  in  the  country  with  company, 
it  was,  as  it  still  is,  the  custom  of  our  magnates  to 
reserve   all   the   best   chambers   and   dressing-rooms 
for    the   married    couples,    and    to   stow    away    the 
bachelors,  anyhow,  in  the  attics,  or  in  the  turrets 
or  wings.     At  Lord  A.'s,  Brummell  had  been  put 
into  an  uncomfortable  room ,  at  the  very  top  of  the 
high  house,  more  than  once.     He  went  to  Lord  A^s 
in  very  cold  Christmas  weather,  and  before  he  v^as 
quite  recovered  from  an  attack  of  gout. 
^  On  his  arrival  the  groom  of  the  chambers  was 
conducting    him    to    his    old    dormitory  _       Stop 
cried   the   Beau.     "  I   cannot  go  up   and   doun   all 
hese  inf:rnal  stairs  !     Is  there  no  room  lo-r  down 
Here    for  example?"     He  threw  open  the  door  ot 
a  mo  t  comfortable,  luxurious  apartment,  and  ent  red. 
"Sir"  said  the  groom  of  the  chambers,      this  is 
res  r^ed  for  the  Earl  of  W.,  who  is  expected  every 
minute.    The  single  gentlemen's  apartments  are 


276  BEAU  BRUMMELL      [chap,  xxvii 

"  I  know  !  I  know  !  So  put  Lord  W.  in  one  of  them, 
for  he  is  now  a  bachelor.  There  !  Bring  in  my  port- 
manteau and  dressing-case."  The  footman  who  was 
follo\^dng  did  as  he  was  bidden,  and  the  groom  of  the 
chambers  went  off  shrugging  his  shoulders.  The 
Beau  then  began  to  unpack  and  prepare  for  his 
elaborate  toilette.  Hark  !  The  sound  of  carriage- 
wheels  in  the  avenue  !  He  fastens  the  chamber  door, 
and  calmly  proceeds  w^ith  his  important  operations. 
In  a  few  minutes  the  voice  of  Lord  W.  is  heard  on  the 
staircase — in  the  corridor — and  then  a  petulant, 
sharp  rap  at  the  door.  "  Mr.  Brummell  !  Mr. 
Brummell  !"  cries  his  lordship.  "  My  lord,"  re- 
sponds the  Beau,  "  I  am  dressing  and  cannot  be 
disturbed.  I  am  in  my  buffs,  in  naturalibus.'^ 
"  But  this  is  my  room,  sir  !"  "  Possession,  my 
lord,  possession  !  You  know  the  rest  !  You  are 
single,  my  lord  !  I  am  a  married  man — married  to 
the  gout."  His  lordship  went  away  with  an  ominous 
growl,  nor  was  his  ill-humour  dissipated  by  being 
put  into  an  equall}^  comfortable  apartment  on  the 
same  floor.  It  was  not  so  much  that  he  cared  for 
this  room  or  that,  but  that  he,  the  Earl  of  W.,  should 
be  dislodged  by  one  of  inferior  rank,  b}'  a  commoner, 
by  Beau  Brummell,  was  hard  to  bear  or  to  digest. 
But  the  noble,  easy,  good-humoured  master  of  the 
mansion  only  laughed  at  Brummell's  impudence, 
and  long  before  the  company  separated,  the  Beau 
succeeded  in  dissipating  the  Earl's  ill-humour.  I 
have  heard  other  stories  of  equal  assurance  and  equal 
success.  Until  he  fell  upon  his  evil  days,  Beau 
Brummell  appears  never  to  have  been  "  put  out  " 
by  anybody  or  by  anything.  When  a  friend  was 
condoling  with  him  on  his  first  fit  of  the  gout,  Brum- 
mell said:  "  Oh  !  I  should  not  so  much  care  if  the 
gout  had  not  attacked  my  favourite  leg  !" 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

AN    ENGLISH    MERCHANT 

In  my  passage  through  hfe  I  have  known  one  man 
who  possessed  the  invakiable  quaHties  of  resignation 
and  gentleness  of  temper,  in  an  eminent  and  almost 
miraculous  degree.  This  was  Mr.  J.  W.,  a  Mediter- 
ranean merchant.  I  met  him  for  the  first  time  at 
Cadiz,  and  afterwards  at  Seville,  Malaga,  and  at  other 
places  higher  up  the  Midland  sea.  I  have  seen  him 
subjected  to  very  rude  trials  and  most  painful  tests, 
but  I  never  once  heard  a  harsh  or  passionate  ex- 
pression drop  from  his  lips.  To  a  severe  trial  he 
would  say:  "  It  is  rather  disagreeable,"  or  "  It  is 
very  disagreeable,"  and  the  strongest  expression  he 
ever  let  drop  was,  "  It  is  very  disgusting."  It  was 
out  of  the  power  of  prosperity  to  elate  or  inflate  him ; 
and  it  was  equally  out  of  the  power  of  adversity  to 
depress  or  embitter  him.  He  had  been  tempted  in 
more  w^ays  than  the  patient  Job : 

"  For  Satan,  now  grown  wiser  than  of  yore, 
Tempts  men  by  making  rich,  not  making  poor." 

He  had  been  tried  both  ways,  and  in  one  way  he 
had  been  tried  twice;  for  he  began  life  as  a  very  poor 
unfriended  youth,  he  became  a  rich  man,  and  then 
died  a  very  poor  one. 

A   friend    to   whom    he   was   showing   a    valuable 
Italian   picture  slipped  on  the  waxed,  very  slippery 
I  floor  of  the  apartment,  fell  forward,  and  knocked  his 

^  hand   right   through    the   canvas   and    the  principal 

^  figure.     Turning  to  me,  W.  said,  sotlo  voce,  "  Mac, 

f!  277 


278        AN  ENGLISH  MERCHANT    [chap,  xxviii 

that's  rather  unpleasant  !"  A  rough  sea-captain 
took  too  much  wine  one  night,  and,  partly  b}'  accident 
and  partly  by  drunken  design,  broke  everything  that 
was  left  on  the  dessert  table.  "  Rather  disagree- 
able !"  said  my  friend,  who  never  said  an3'thing  more 
about  it.  During  one  of  his  absences  in  England,  his 
junior  partner  went  into  imprudent  rash  speculations, 
and  sacrificed  all  their  property,  and  the  credit  of 
the  house  to  boot.  The  first  time  I  re-saw — to 
Anglicize  a  good  Italian  verb — poor  old  W.,  I  con- 
doled with  him  on  this  sad  catastrophe.  He  went 
through  the  whole  stor>^,  which  I  had  imperfectly- 
understood,  with  a  quivering  under-lip,  and  now  and 
then  wdth  a  moistened  eye,  but  there  was  no  passion 
or  any  violent  excitement  in  his  manner,  or  in  the 
tone  of  his  voice,  and  he  wound  up  by  saying,  ''  At 
my  time  of  life  this  is  rather  disagreeable;  indeed, 
it  is  rather  disgusting." 

A  few  3^ears  before  the  final  coup,  some  house  in 
London,  in  one  of  our  periodical  panics,  went  to  the 
bad,  and  he  lost  some  thousands.  ''  This,"  said  he, 
"  is  unpleasant,  but  it  would  have  been  much  worse 
if  they  had  failed  last  3^ear,  for  then  I  must  have 
lost  twice  as  much  by  them." 

There  can  have  been  but  few  more  hospitable  men. 
In  his  prosperity-  he  very  frequently  gave  excellent 
dinners  with  the  best  of  wines,  and  he  entertained  at 
his  table  Colonels,  Generals,  Diplomatists,  and  English 
travellers  of  all  degrees,  not  excepting  the  highest. 
Afterwards  I  have  known  him  not  to  have  money 
enough  to  pa}'  for  a  dinner,  and  not  to  know  where, 
in  that  desolating  "  populous  solitude  "  of  London, 
to  seek  for  one;  yet  I  never  heard  him  complain,  or 
say  any  more  than  "  it  was  rather  unpleasant."  A 
few  of  his  high-class  friends,  by  small  joint  contribu- 
tions, kept  him  clear  from  anything  like  absolute 
want;  but  he  rather  felt  the  dependency,  and  said 
that  "  it  was  rather  disgusting."  I  need  scarcely 
add  that  his  soul  was  sustained  by  ''  the  means  of 


CHAP,  xxviii]        THE  BRUNELS  279 

Grace  and  the  hope  of  Glory."  No  philosophy,  no 
amount  of  human  reason,  could  have  worked  out 
such  a  resignation  as  his. 


THE  BRUNELS,  CIVIL  ENGINEERS 

I  HAVE  certainly  owed  to  chance  encounters  on  the 
road,  or  to  accidental  meetings  in  outlandish  places, 
some  of  the  pleasantest  acquaintances  and  some  of 
the  best  friends  I  have  ever  had,  to  wit.  Captain 
Guyon,  Admiral  Elphinstone  Fleming,  John  Ralph, 
Matthew  Price,  Charles  Danvers,  the  late  Lord  Dudley 
and  Ward,  General  Church,  Prince  Rosamoffski,  and 
at  least  a  score  of  others.  When  travelling  abroad 
Englishmen  get  rid  of  their  frigidit}^  stiffness,  and 
inaccessibility,  or  at  least  suspend  those  amiable 
national  qualities  for  a  season. 

One  cold,  raw  February  morning,  a  little  after 
daylight,  in  the  year  of  grace  1829,  I  embarked  at 
Paris  for  Calais,  in  a  big  rambling  diligence.  I  had 
taken  my  place  for  what  they  call  Vinterieur,  thinking 
that  would  be  warmest;  and  in  I  got,  and  was  seated 
opposite  to  an  unmistakable  John  Bull,  when  two 
young  men  passed  and  clambered  up  into  what  they 
call  the  coupe,  that  is,  the  front  part  of  the  machine, 
the  interieur  coming  next,  and  behind  it  what  they 
call,  or  then  called,  the  rotonde.  Everybody  knows 
poor  Cow^per's  sketch  of  a  true  John  Bull — 

"  An  honest  man,  close  buttoned  to  the  chin, 
Broad-cloth  without,  and  a  warm  heart  within." 

I  would  not  answer  for  my  companion's  honesty, 
and  I  had  reason  to  doubt  his  warmth  of  heart ;  but 
in  externals  he  answered  to  the  picture,  for  he  was 
great-coated  and  top-coated  and  cloaked  to  that 
degree  that  he  looked  hke  a  bale  of  broad-cloth. 
He  was  what  Walter  Scott  used  to  designate  as  a 
"  rough  and  round  man."  He  had  ruddy  cheeks, 
and  a  red  nose  which  betokened  the  bon  vivaiif,  but 


28o  THE  BRUNELS         [chap,  xxviii 

his  countenance  was  as  clouded  and  gloomy  as  if 
there  had  been  no  "  cakes  and  ale  "  in  the  blessed 
world.  I  never  could,  and  even  now  that  I  am  old 
and  careworn  I  never  can,  travel  with  any  man  in 
dead,  sulky  silence.  If  I  were  wayfaring  with  a 
chimney-sweep  or  a  costermonger  I  should  try  to  get 
talk  out  of  him.  I  tried  my  red-nosed  friend  at 
starting  by  making  those  remarks  about  the  weather 
which  are  so  very  English  and  so  very  original.  ''It 
is  very  cold,"  said  I,  "  and  I  think  that  we  shall 
soon  have  another  fall  of  snow."  "  Hem  !  Hum  !" 
said  my  comrade.  When  we  had  got  out  of  town, 
and  were  rattling  along  a  stone-paved  causeway, 
some  miles  in  the  country,  I  made  another  attempt 
by  saying  that  Paris  was  very  gay  at  this  season. 
"  Is  it?"  grunted  Broad-cloth. 

While  stopping  to  change  horses  at  St.  Denis,  I 
said  that  this  was  a  famous  old  place,  and  that  the 
Kings  of  France  were  buried  there.  "  Are  they  ?" 
grunted  Broad-cloth.  Having  failed  in  a  third 
attempt  I  gave  him  up,  and  had  recourse  to  a  book. 
But  as  we  advanced  I  felt  wretchedl}^  cold.  I  had 
been  living  nearh^  nine  ^''ears  in  warm  climates,  and 
was  ill-provided  with  warm  clothing.  I  was  on  my 
way  homeward  from  Turkey,  and  had  been  travelling 
in  rather  a  desultory  manner,  and  nearly  always  by 
dilly,  through  Toulon,  Marseilles,  Aix,  Avignon, 
Nismes,  Pont  du  Gard,  Valengay,  Lyon,  and  Dijon, 
whence  I  took  the  direct  road  to  Paris. 

It  was  a  terrible  winter,  that  of  1828-29;  all  the 
sunny  south  was  deep  under  snow,  which  retarded 
our  progress  very  many  hours,  and  in  which  more 
than  once  our  cumbrous  vehicle  stuck  fast.  The 
Cote  d'Or,  and  all  the  golden  vine-clad  hills  of  Bur- 
gundy, might  have  been  taken  for  bits  of  Siberia  in 
winter-time,  and  twice  one  bitter,  blowing,  snowing 
night  I  and  all  the  other  passengers  had  to  get  out 
and  walk,  and  the  conducteur  had  to  employ  not 
only  three  extra  horses  but  also  two  yokes  of  oxen 


t 


CHAP,  xxviii]     A  COLD  JOURNEY  281 

to  drag  up  his  ark.  But  for  a  very  kind  and  very 
pretty  French  lady,  who  had  with  her  her  husband's 
thick,  warm  mihtary  cloak,  and  had  no  need  of  it, 
and  who  had  moreover  a  c;ood  large  tin  vessel,  which 
was  filled  at  each  relay  with  hot  water,  I  think  I 
must  have  perished  one  night  in  Burgundy,  where 
I  had  often  been  all  but  roasted  alive.  I  might  have 
provided  myself  with  proper  clothing  at  Paris,  and 
should  have  done  so  but  for  a  little  imprudence  which 
I  shall  mention  hereafter. 

While  our  Calais  dilly  was  changing  horses  at 
another  station,  I  heard  a  voice  from  the  coupS 
shouting,  "  Apportez  nous  deux  bottes  de  foin,  je  vous 
en  prie  f"  The  hay  was  brought  and  put  in,  and 
then  from  the  same  coupe  I  heard  a  good  English 
voice  say,  "  It  is  not  enough  to  cover  up  the  legs, 
let  us  have  some  more  while  we  are  about  it  !"  Then 
I  heard  the  other  voice,  and  the  words,  "  Mon  ami, 
apportez  nous  encore  de  bottes.  Merci,  merci,  mon 
brave  /" 

"  I  think,"  said  I  to  Broad-cloth,  "  we  had  better 
follow  their  example.  My  feet  are  so  cold  that  I 
can  scarce!}^  feel  them."  "  Mine  ain't,"  grunted  he; 
**  three  pair  of  worsted  stockings,  thick  flannel 
drawers  down  to  ankles,  quite  warm  enough  1"  I 
would  have  called  for  the  hay,  but  I  had  lost  time, 
and  the  vehicle  was  getting  under  weigh. 

So  on  we  went.  Broad-cloth  being  as  taciturn,  and 
I  as  cold,  as  ever.  And  all  this  stage  I  was  tantalized 
by  hearing  the  sounds  of  merr}'  voices  and  of  frequent 
and  loud  laughs  in  the  coupe.  At  the  next  stage  my 
miseries  terminated.  As  we  stopped  at  the  post- 
house,  a  garron  handed  me  in  a  scrap  of  paper  on 
which  was  written  in  pencil,  "  Requested  by  the 
two  gentlemen  in  the  coupe,  the  loan  of  a  gentleman 
in  the  intMeur.''  As  Broad-cloth  sat  by  the  window, 
and  I  at  some  distance,  the  lad  gave  the  missive  to 
him;  he  read  it,  gave  a  grunt,  and  then  instantly 
gave  the  paper  to  me.     In  a  very  few  seconds  I  was 


282  THE  BRUNELS         [chap.xxviii 

out  of  his  presence,  and  comfortably  ensconced 
between  two  delightful  young  men,  brimful  of 
vivacity  and  fun. 

*'  While  we  are  stopping,  and  have  the  opportunity, 
I  think  we  had  better  take  in  more  hay,"  said  one 
of  them,  who  then  repeated  the  mot  d'ordre,  "  A'lon 
ami,  apportez  nous  deux  bottes  de  join  /"  We  did  the 
same  at  each  relay;  until,  by  the  time  we  got  to 
Beauvais,  we  were  buried  in  hay  nearl}^  up  to  the 
chin,  and  looking  like  three  stone  Schiedam  bottles 
packed  and  embedded  in  hay  for  safe  carriage.  This 
comparison  I  made,  renewed  the  laughter  that  had 
scarcely  ceased  from  the  time  I  entered  the  coupe 
and  had  got  packed  up  and  unfrozen.  I  could  now 
say  with  as  much  pathos  as  Jean  Jacques,  ''Ah! 
on  etait  jeune  alors  V  Younger  in  heart  even  than 
in  years  ! 

What  a  happy  dinner  was  that  we  had  in  the 
homely  roadside  inn  at  Beauvais  !  We  had  a  bottle 
or  two  of  Bordeaux,  besides  the  vin  ordinaire,  but  w^e 
did  not  need  this  stimulus,  for  we  had  been  just  a^ 
merry  on  a  cup  or  two  of  coffee  and  a  slice  of  bread 
and  butter  for  breakfast,  as  we  were  during  or  after 
dinner.  The  condudeur  was  a  good-natured,  jolly 
fellow  himself,  and  not  very  particular  as  to  time, 
so  we  sat  rather  a  long  while,  talking  and  joking; 
and  all  this  while  there  sat,  at  the  farthest  end  of 
the  table,  old  Broad-cloth,  as  mum  as  ever,  eating 
at  a  rare  rate ;  drinking  champagne  and  then  settling 
it  with  hot  brandy  and  water.  We  cast  side-glances 
at  him  now  and  then,  but  otherwise  took  no  more 
notice  of  him  than  we  should  have  done  of  a  bale  of 
cloth  or  any  other  merchandise. 

I  forget  now  whether  we  took  in  more  hay  at  Beau- 
vais, or  were  obliged  to  take  some  out.  I  know  that 
at  some  halting-place  on  the  road,  during  that  stormy, 
snowy  night,  we  performed  the  latter  operation, 
being  so  very  warm  when  settled  and  fixed  in  so  many 
bottes  da  join.     I   told   my  companions  how  Broad- 


CHAP,  xxviii]     AN  ODD  COSTUME  283 

cloth  had  taken  the  note,  read  it,  and  handed  it  to 
me.  ''Of  course,"  said  they,  "  he  saw  the  word 
'  gentleman,'  and  must  have  known  the  paper  could 
not  be  meant  for  him."  At  first  I  fancied  he  must 
»have  taken  me  for  a  foreigner,  an  excusable  mistake 
considering  my  externals.  I  had  not  yet  cut  off  my 
Turkey  moustaches;  1  wore  a  scarlet  Turkish  fez, 
with  a  long  blue  silk  tassel  pendant  therefrom;  my 
under-coat  and  waistcoat  had  been  cut  and  made  at 
Naples,  my  thin  top-coat  at  Smyrna,  my  trousers 
and  boots  at  Constantinople;  in  short,  there  was  not 
a  bit  of  English  in  all  my  attire.  When  I  first  reached 
London,  and  before  I  had  time  to  get  a  refit,  my 
good  friend  Ottley  the  publisher  used  to  say  that 
mine  was  a  geographical  costume;  that  I  had  some- 
thing from  every  part  of  the  world.  One  afternoon 
I  made  a  hurried  toilette  in  order  to  keep  a  riding 
appointment  with  Ottley.  After  cantering  for  some 
time  in  Rotten  Row  and  round  the  Park,  we  dis- 
mounted, and  went  into  Kensington  Gardens  to  hear 
the  band.  We  were  scarcely  on  the  terrace  ere 
Ottley  said  laughingly:  "  Why,  Mac  !  you  have  been 
putting  on  odd  boots  !  Your  boots  don't  match  !" 
Looking  down,  I  saw  that  I  had  put  my  left  leg 
into  a  beautifully  made,  rather  narrow-toed  boot, 
made  at  Naples,  and  my  right  leg  into  an  ugly,  broad, 
square-toed  boot,  fabricated  by  a  Greek  at  Pera. 
I  believe  that  Ottley,  always  a  well-dressed  man, 
and  at  that  time  quite  an  exquisite,  was  rather 
ashamed  of  me  in  that  gathering  of  fashion  and 
dandyism.  I  must  sa}^  in  extenuation  of  this  solecism 
and  of  my  absent-mindedness,  that  besides  being  in 
a  hurry,  I  was  then  writing  my  first  book  of  travels 
in  Turkey,  and  had  my  head  full  of  the  subject,  by 
night  and  by  day. 

To  return  to  my  travelling  companions.  One  of 
them  was  a  fair,  handsome  young  man,  apparently 
about  nineteen  or  twenty;  the  other  a  little,  nimble, 
dark-complexioned  man  who  did  not  look  more  than 


284  THE  BRUNELS         [chap.xxviii 

five  or  six  and  twenty.  The  younger  had  a  vast  deal 
of  good  nature  and  quiet  humour,  the  elder  a  vast 
deal  of  ready,  poignant  wit,  and  some  of  his  repartees 
were  admirable.  Though  so  cosy  and  comfortable 
in  our  hay,  not  one  of  us  had  an}^  inclination  to  sleep, 
so  we  talked  and  laughed  all  through  that  night,  as 
we  did  all  through  the  next  day.  One  of  our  great 
sources  of  fun  was  simple  enough.  Wellnigh  upon 
midnight,  while  the  conducteur  was  changing  his 
horses,  and  then  taking  his  goutte  and  making  love 
to  the  landlady,  we  went  in  to  the  immense  kitchen 
of  the  inn,  where  a  glorious  wood  fire  was  blazing 
on  a  hearth  of  gigantic  proportions,  and  where  five- 
and-twenty  rough-bearded,  rough-looking,  bronzed 
fellows  were  sitting  side  b}^  side  on  two  long  benches, 
and  every  mother's  son  of  them  wearing  a  blue 
blouse  and  a  snow-white  cotton  night-cap.  O. 
wanted  to  buy  one  of  them  to  take  home  as  a  souvenir, 
but  though  they  were  all  very  good-natured  and 
obliging,  making  room  for  us  by  the  fireside,  not 
one  of  them  would  part  with  his  night-cap.  We  took 
coffee,  and  talked  away  with  these  honest  men  of 
the  road,  stablemen,  carriers,  and  the  like.  I  asked 
one  of  them  what  was  their  chief  employment. 
**  Le  roiilage,  monsieur,  le  roulage  de  Boulogne  jusqu'd 
Paris f  et  de  retour  de  Paris  jusqu'd  Boulogne  f" 
Their  talk  was  full  of  roulage,  and  of  the  verb  rouler 
in  all  its  moods  and  tenses.  Seeing  my  fez  and 
fierce  moustache,  they  asked  me  if  I  were  a  Turk  ? 
No.  A  Greek?  No.  ''  Alors,"  said  one  of  them, 
*'  probablement  monsieur  est  Algerien  /"  They  were 
very  much  astonished  when  I  assured  them  that  I, 
like  my  companions,  was  English.  I  told  them  that 
though  neither  Turk  nor  Greek,  I  had  been  travelling 
a  good  deal  in  those  countries,  and  was  just  returning 
from  them.  "  Were  you  ever  in  Italy?"  said  one 
of  them.  "  I  had  a  brother  there  that  got  killed  in 
Murat  's  last  battle  with  the  Austrians . ' '  Yes .  ' '  Have 
you  ever  travelled  in  Spain?"  said  a  very  brawny 


CHAP,  xxviii]      THE  THAMES  TUNNEL  285 

fellow  who  would  have  looked  every  inch  a  soldier 
but  for  his  night-cap.  ''  I  was  marched  off  to  Spain 
as  a  conscript  in  1 809,  and  a  miserable,  hungry  country 
I  found  it  !"  Yes,  I  had  been  over  a  great  part  of 
Spain.  In  Portugal  also?  Yes.  "  //  est  Evident," 
said  an  old  waggoner,  taking  his  pipe  from  his  mouth, 
and  giving  me  a  look  of  approbation,  "  il  est  evident 
que  monsieur  a  beaucoup  route/"  "  Rontons  !"  said 
my  friends,  *'  bonne  unit  /  bonne  nuit,  nies  amis  I" 

When  we  got  resettled  in  our  hay,  we  laughed 
over  the  inn-kitchen  scenes  and  conversation.  We 
were  cottoning  like  schoolfellows  or  lifelong  friends, 
though  as  yet  not  one  of  us  knew  so  much  as  the 
others'  names;  and  it  was  not  until  the  second  day, 
as  we  were  approaching  the  sand-heaps  near  Boulogne, 
that  we  imparted  this  important  piece  of  information. 
We  got  upon  the  subject  of  the  Thames  Tunnel, 
about  which  I  had  heard  very  much  on  the  Continent, 
and  concerning  which  I  felt  great  curiosity  and 
interest.  The  elder  of  my  companions  gave  a  minute, 
clever,  and  spirited  account  of  that  work,  of  its 
present  state,  and  of  the  causes  of  the  late  accident 
and  suspension  of  operations. 

"  You  seem  to  know  all  about  the  tunnel  !"  said 
the  younger  man.  "  I  ought  to  know  something 
about  it,"  said  the  elder,  ''  seeing  that  I  am  only  son 
and  assistant  to  the  engineer,  and  that  my  name, 
like  his,  is  Isambard  Brunei  !"  We  gave  him  an 
extra  shake  of  the  hand  on  the  announcement.  "  I 
had  been  thinking  for  some  time,"  said  the  junior, 
"  that  as  we  three  fellows  have  met  in  the  dilly,  and 
are  likely  to  meet  again,  it  would  be  as  well  if 
each  of  us  knew  the  names  of  his  comrades.  My 
name  is  Orlebar,  my  present  condition  that  of  cadet 
at  Woolwich."  I  followed  by  disclosing  my  High- 
land patronymic,  of  which  I  was,  and  still  am,  rather 
proud.  We  had  got  at  each  others'  ages  before, 
but  down  to  this  time  we  had  addressed  each  other 
by  nicknames— Orlebar  being  "  Juventus,"  Brunei, 

20 


286  THE  BRUNELS         [chap,  xxvni 

"  Mathematicus,"  and  I,  "  Pasha  "  or  "  Asia  Minor." 
We  went  talking  and  laughing  into  Calais,  rather  late 
at  night,  and  we  continued  the  sport  at  supper  in  the 
Hotel  Bourbon.  The  next  day  we  had  an  equally 
merry  and  delightful  passage  over  to  England,  from 
which  I  had  been  so  long  absent.  At  Dover,  where 
we  stayed  some  hours,  my  active  friend  Brunei 
rendered  me  more  than  yeoman  service.  Though  I 
©ught  to  have  gained  experience  and  tact  in  such 
matters,  I  was  and  am  the  most  helpless  of  men  at 
a  custom-house  or  a  barrier.  I  had  a  big  box  of 
Italian  and  French  books,  and  this  Brunei  got  cleared 
in  an  instant,  without  its  being  opened,  and  without 
paying  any  duty.  How  he  managed  it  I  cannot 
say,  for  he  and  Orlebar  left  me  to  enjoy  mine  ease  at 
mine  inn,  and  took  all  the  clearing  on  themselves. 
I  was  quite  nipped  by  the  intense  cold,  and  discharged 
my  part  of  the  joint  duties  in  ordering  a  good  dinner. 
And  a  good  dinner  we  had,  and  very  good  were  the 
wines,  and  very  merry  was  our  talk  at  the  Old  Ship. 

But  there  was  a  momentary  suspension  of  our 
cheerfulness,  when  we  came  to  pay  the  rather  heavy 
bill,  and,  that  being  done,  found  that  we  were  all 
nearly  "  drained  dry."  Juventus  had  only  a  five- 
franc  piece;  he  had  been  spending  a  deal  of  money 
in  Paris  on  trinkets  for  his  sisters,  Brunei  had  been 
doing  the  same,  and  I  had  been  along  the  quays, 
and  among  half  of  the  bookstalls  and  bookshops  of 
the  French  Capital,  spending  without  forethought  or 
calculation.  Then,  like  young  men,  we  had  lived 
freely  on  the  road ;  and  then  also  our  investments  in 
hay  had  been  considerable. 

"  I   should   have  been   uneasy   before  we  got   to  Sjk 

Calais,"  said  Orlebar,  ''  but  I  thought  it  most  hkely  ^ 

that  one  or   both   of  ^'ou   would   be  well-stocked."  j 

*'  That's  what  I  thought  of  you,  and  still  more  of  •  | 

my  senior,  the  Pasha,  who  is  evidently  a  very  thought-  j 

ful,  cautious  man."     ''  I  had  just  the  same  hope  in  jj 

you,  and  in  Juventus,"  said  I.     So  each  had  been 


CHAP,  xxviii]     A  COACH  JOURNEY  287 

counting  on  the  other  two,  and  we  were  all  three 
"  cleaned  out,"  or  nearly  so.  "  If  we  stop  here 
to-night  we  shall  have  another  long  bill  to  pay 
to-morrow  morning.  Dover  is  one  of  the  few  places 
in  England  wdiere  I  know  nobody,"  so  spoke  Brunei. 
"  I  have  a  friend,  an  Artillery  officer,  up  on  the 
heights,  but  I  believe  he  is  away  on  leave,"  so  spoke 
Orlebar.  1  thought  we  had  better  speak  to  the 
landlord  of  the  Ship,  tell  him  our  plight,  and  give 
him  our  names  and  addresses.  "  1  tell  you  what 
will  be  better  still,"  said  Brunei.  "  1  believe  there  is 
a  night  coach  for  London,  and  we  have  quite  money 
enough  to  pay  our  way  up.  Shall  we  start?"  I 
rather  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  the  cold,  but  both 
of  my  companions  wanted  to  go,  and  I  would  not  be 
left  behind.  A  waiter  was  sent  to  secure  inside  places 
for  three,  but  came  back  with  the  blank  intelligence 
that  only  one  was  disengaged. 

''  Well,"  said  Brunei,  "  Asia  Minor  will  take  that, 
as  he  is  rather  a  valetudinarian,  and  Juventus  and  I 
will  go  outside."  It  was  eight  or  nine  o'clock  at 
night  when  the  coach  stopped  at  the  door  to  take 
us  up.  In  the  hall  we  found  a  fair  lady  in  very  deep 
affliction.  She  must  be  in  London  by  an  early  hour 
in  the  morning,  and  she  was  sure  she  would  die  on 
the  road  if  she  travelled  outside.  She  was  a  very 
pretty  woman,  and  splendidly  and  most  fashionably 
attired,  but  had  she  been  ugly,  or  anything  in  the 
shape  of  w^oman,  I  w^ould  have  given  her  up  my 
inside  place.  We  handed  her  in,  and  saw  there  were 
three  other  ladies  in  the  coach.  We  three  then 
clambered  up  into  the  basket  or  dicky,  and  off  we 
w^ent  through  as  cold  and  raw  a  night  as  I  have  ever 
experienced.  My  kind  companions  placed  me 
betw^een  them,  and  wrapped  me  up  in  everything 
they  could  possibly  spare  from  their  own  persons. 
I  never  shall  forget  the  drive  along  the  elevated 
ridge  beyond  Harbledown,  and  the  bleaker  ridge  of 
Boughton  under  Blean.     At  the  village  of  Boughton 


288  THE  BRUNELS         [chap.xxviii 

we  bought  some  hay — but  we  could  not  keep  it  about 
our  feet,  for  it  was  blowing  a  gale,  and  the  wind 
carried  it  away.  Another  severe  trial  we  had  on 
that  lofty  very  steep  ridge  above  Chatham.  But 
I  am  going  too  fast,  and  overlooking  an  incident 
or  two.  Somewhere  about  midnight,  the  coach 
stopped  in  Canterbury  at  a  very  antiquated,  old- 
fashioned  inn,  where  I  had  very  often  stayed  before, 
and  where  I  had  dined  in  1820,  when  starting  on  the 
travels  I  was  now  finishing.  It  was  on  the  right- 
hand  side,  coming  in  from  Dover,  but  it  is  now  gone, 
and  not  a  trace  of  it  is  to  be  found,  which  I  much 
regret,  as  I  had  pleasant  souvenirs  and  associations 
connected  with  it.  Nearly  all  the  people  of  the  house 
were  in  their  warm  beds,  but  there  was  a  barmaid 
at  her  post,  and  a  good  blazing  coal-fire  was  in  the 
taproom,  where  some  half-dozen  fellows  apparently 
connected  with  the  Dover  and  London  coaching 
were  drinking  and  disputing  about  the  last  season's 
yield  of  hops,  a  subject  seldom  long  out  of  the  mouth 
of  a  Canterburian.  One  of  them  said  to  another 
who  had  made  some  numerical  statement,  "  I  don't 

wish   to   be   rude,   but   that's   a   d d   he  !"     Our 

natural  gallantry  led  us  to  think  of  the  fair,  splendidly 
dressed  lad}*,  who  had  been  the  subject  of  some  of 
our  talk  in  the  basket,  and  of  the  other  three  "  in- 
sides."  Brunei  and  Orlebar  sallied  out  to  the  coach- 
door,  and  soon  came  back  giggling.  "  What  do 
you  think?"  said  Brunei.  "  Your  grand  lady  w^ants 
a  pint  of  London  porter  with  the  chill  off,  and  the 
three  others  want  hot  gin  and  water  !"  ''  You  don't 
pronounce  the  words  properly,"  said  Orlebar;  "the 
words  were, '  Uz  ladies  likes  gin  and  water,  'ot,  'ot  !'  " 
They  gave  the  orders  to  the  barmaid,  and  left  the 
coachman  to  wait  upon  the  interesting  ''  insides." 

Another  pinching,  biting  drive  was  across  Gad's 
Hill,  and  another  across  Blackheath.  There  was  a 
bright,  rather  full  moon,  but  it  was  frequently 
obscured  by  drifting  clouds,  which  resolved  them- 


CHAP,  xxviii]     ARRIVAL  IN  LONDON  289 

selves  into  snovvflakes,  which  froze  as  they  fell,  and 
cut  our  faces  like  miniature  icicles,  sharp  as  needle- 
points. Now  and  then  we  had  a  heavy  fall,  and  it 
was  highly  picturesque  to  watch  the  effect  of  the 
moonbeams  mingling  with  the  descending  and  drifting 
snow.  The  roads  became  so  heavy  from  the  snow- 
drifts that  we  made  but  slow  progress.  There  was 
another  night-coach  on  the  road,  going  the  same  way 
as  ourselves;  it  w^as  sometimes  behind  us,  and  some- 
times ahead  of  us.  In  the  basket  of  that  coach  was 
an  Artillery  soldier,  surpassingly  drunk,  and  as  he 
fell  asleep,  and  had  nobody  near  him,  we  were  afraid 
he  might  come  to  harm,  which  he  must  have  done 
but  for  the  ingenuity  of  Brunei,  who  stopped  the 
vehicle  and  showed  the  coachman  how  to  make  the 
poor  fellow  tight  and  safe  in  his  seat.  As  the  man 
had  nothing  on  but  his  uniform,  we  wondered  that 
he  was  not  frozen  to  death.  I  suffered  greatly  myself; 
but  it  was  not  in  the  power  of  cold  to  freeze,  or  even 
to  chill,  our  hilarity;  and  I  rather  think  we  were 
still  laughing  when  the  coach,  at  the  end  of  the 
journey,  put  as  down  at  the  London  Coffee  House, 
Ludgate  Hill,  at  that  period  a  very  comfortable, 
good  hotel.  Here  Brunei  recommended  us  to  the 
sympathy  and  particular  attentions  of  two  night- 
waiters.  "  You  and  Orlebar,"  said  he,  "  will  stay 
here  to-night,  or  rather  this  morning,  and  I  will 
come  to  the  rescue  w^hen  I  have  had  a  few  hours' 
sleep.  We  have  a  house,  close  by,  in  Bridge  Street, 
Blackfriars,  a  deux  pas  de  chez  vous  ;  I  would  take 
you  home  with  me  if  the  hour  were  only  a  little  less 
unreasonable."  He  then  went  away  and  left  us 
two  to  our  own  devices.  It  was  nearl}^  six  o'clock 
of  the  morning.  A  good  fire  and  port-wine  negus 
quite  restored  Juventus;  but  I  now  felt  some  evil 
effects  of  being  so  long  exposed  to  that  cutting  night 
air  and  intense  cold.  Luckily  a  little  inscription, 
"  Baths  ready  at  any  hour,"  caught  my  eve.  In  less 
than  half  an  hour  each  of  us  was  in  a  delicious  warm 


290  THE  BRUNELS         [chap,  xxviii 

bath;  and  then,  in  less  than  three  minutes,  both 
were  between  the  blankets.  I  woke  the  next  morning 
just  as  well  as  I  had  been  before  the  nocturnal  journey. 
But,  before  I  was  well  awake,  at  about  the  hour  of 
noon,  Brunei  was  at  my  bedside,  with  five  sovereigns 
for  me,  and  five  for  Orlebar.  He  pressingly  invited 
us  both  to  his  father's  house,  and  bade  us  go  often; 
there  would  always  be  a  diner  en  famille  at  six,  and 
knife  and  fork  for  us.  He  was  in  a  great  hurry, 
going  down  to  the  Tunnel.  After  breakfast,  and 
after  many  cordial  farewells,  Orlebar,  whose  leave 
from  Woolwich  had  not  quite  expired,  went  off  for 
his  father's,  at  some  Hall,  in  Worcestershire,  I  believe. 
I  had  a  good  nest-egg  at  a  banker's  in  the  City,  but 
before  I  could  draw  any  of  the  money,  it  was  necessary 
to  procure  the  signature  of  a  gentleman  who  lived 
in  the  extreme  West.  Westward,  therefore,  I  started, 
to  get  through  this  piece  of  business,  and  to  see  if 
I  could  find  any  of  my  old  friends  and  acquaintances. 
As  usual  in  our  Babylon,  nobody  was  at  home,  and 
most  people  not  yet  in  town.  Of  real,  staunch  old 
friends,  I  found  on  this  first  day  but  one,  dear  old 
Andre  Vieusseux,*  and  him  I  did  not  find  till  late 
in  the  evening.     At  a  very  late  hour  in  the  night, 

*  Andre  Vieusseux,  author  of  a  "History  of  Switzerland," 
and  of  "  Italy  and  the  Italians  in^the  Nineteenth  Century  "  (1824). 
In  the  latter  book  he  twice  quotes  from  MacFarlane's  poem,  "  The 
Wanderer"  (1820): 

"  Upon  th'  horizon  placidly  lies  sleeping 
Caprea,  rocky  isle:  for  all  the  guilt 
And  all  the  broken  hearts  and  spirits  weeping. 
And  all  the  blood  in  olden  time  bespilt, 
Have  not  obscured  its  beauties:    still  'tis  gilt 
By  the  warm  purple  ray  that  evening  throws. 
Still  on  its  rugged  cliffs  the  soft  dews  melt, 
StiU  round  its  base  the  calm  rapt  ocean  flows, 
Still  as  the  eye  beholds,  the  heart  with  rapture  glows. 

"  On  one  hand  beamed  Calabria's  Hills  so  bright. 
On  th'  other  Sicily  shone  forth  in  light, 
Like  sisters  fair,  by  deep  waves  held  in  twain, 
Smihng  upon  each  other  in  delight. 
And  stretching  forth  their  arms  in  loving  pain, 
As  tho'  they  fondly  wished  to  meet  again." 


CHAP,  xxviii]     ISAMBARD  BRUNEL  291 

I  returned,  lonely  and  depressed,  to  my  City  hostel. 
As   my  only  City  business  was  soon   over,  on   the 
following  morning  I  put  my  portmanteau,  bag,  and 
case    of   books,    into    a    hackney    coach,    and  drove 
westward   to   a   lodging  Vieusseux   had   secured   for 
me.     On  the  way   I  stopped  at  Brunei's  in  Bridge 
Street.     He  was  out,  but  on  giving  my  name  I  was 
ushered  up  to  the  drawing-room,  where  I  found  his 
mother,  a  very  charming,  unaffected,  warm-hearted, 
thorough  English  gentlewoman,  who  received  me  as 
if  she  had  known  me  all  my  life.     I  returned  the  five 
sovereigns,  at  which  she  laughed  rather  heartily,  as 
she  did  also  at  some  of  the  stories  about  our  journey 
which    Isambard    had    related    and    embellished.     I 
was  not  ten  minutes  in  her  company  before  I  made 
out  that  she  was  devotedly  attached  to  her  dear  old 
French  husband,  that  she  was  enthusiastic  for  his 
reputation,  that  she  doted  on  her  only  son,  and  was 
proud — as   she   well   might   be — of  his  vivacity  and 
abilities.     She   asked   me   if   I    could   not   return   to 
dinner.     I   was  engaged.     "  Then   come  to-morrow, 
and   I  will  get  a  friend  or  two  to  meet  you.     My 
husband  will  be  delighted  to  make  your  acquaint- 
ance."    Such  was  my  first  visit  to  a  house  the  door 
of  which  was  never  afterwards  closed  to  me ;  and  this 
the  beginning  of  an  intimacy  which  was,  for  a  few 
years,  one  of  the  chief  solaces  of  my  somewhat  solitary 
existence.     On  the  morrow  I  was  true  to  time,  n'en 
doutez  pas  !     I  there  met  Miss  Brunei  and  iier  elder 
sister;  the  latter's  husband,  Ben.  Hawes;  and  Arthur 
Steel,    traveUing   companion    from    Bombay   to    Mr. 
Mountstuart    Elphinstone,    who    had    left    me    sick 
and  in  a  quasi-dying  state  at  Constantinople  in  the 
preceding  summer.     Best  of  all,  I  met  the  head  of 
the  house,  dear  old  Brunei;  to  whom,  in  an  instant, 
I  flew  and  attached  myself  as  a  needle  to  a  big  load- 
stone.    Not    that    old    Isambard    was    big;    on    the 
contrary,  he  was  rather  a  smaller  man  than  his  son. 
The   dear   old    man   had — with   a   great   deal   more 


292  THE  BRUNELS         [chap,  xxviii 

warmth  of  heart  than  belonged  to  that  school — the 
manners ;  bearing,  address,  and  even  dress,  of  a 
French  gentleman  of  the  ancien  regime ,  for  he  had 
kept  to  a  rather  antiquated,  but  very  becoming, 
costume. 

I  was  perfectly  charmed  with  him  at  this  our 
first  meeting,  and  from  many  subsequent  ones  I  can 
feel  bold  enough  to  sa}^  that  he  was  a  man  of  the 
kindest  and  most  simple  heart,  and  of  the  acutest 
and  purest  taste  in  Art,  whether  architecture,  paint- 
ing, sculpture,  or  medalHng.  Of  his  mathematics, 
which  seemed  to  be  at  once  profound  and  practical, 
I  cannot  venture  to  speak,  never  having  got  over 
the  Pons  Asinorum ;  nor  could  I  risk  an  opinion  on 
his  very  numerous  mechanical  inventions,  being  b}' 
habit,  or  nature,  debarred  from  any  clear  notion  of 
even  the  simple  mechanism  of  a  wheelbarrow.  But 
what  I  loved  in  old  Brunei  was  his  expansive  taste, 
and  his  love  or  ardent  sympathy  for  things  he  did 
not  understand,  or  had  not  had  time  to  learn.  There 
is  no  adequate  portrait  in  existence  of  this  very 
remarkable  man.  The  picture,  then  in  the  drawing- 
room,  b}^  Jemmy  Northcote,  though  it  presented  a 
something  like  a  man  of  genius  and  very  deep  thought, 
was  little  more  than  a  map  of  dear  old  Brunei's  face. 
It  w^ould  have  required  a  man  of  much  more  fanc}" 
and  genius  than  Northcote — though  he  had  some 
fancy,  considerable  genius,  and  some  execution — 
to  catch  the  variety  and  the  play  of  the  old  engineer's 
countenance.  In  him  I  admired  what  I  could  not 
understand,  and  what  I  could  understand;  and  what 
I  most  admired  of  all  v/as  his  thorough  simplicit}^ 
and  unworldliness  of  character,  his  indifference  to 
mere  lucre,  and  his  genuine  absent-mindedness. 
Evidently  he  had  lived  as  if  there  were  no  rogues  in 
this  nether  world.  He  was  of  Normandy,  of  a  good 
family,  and  on  the  unpopular  side  of  the  French 
Revolution  of  1789;  when  to  save  his  neck  from  the 
embrace  of  the  guillotine,  he  emigrated,  leaving  such 


CHAP,  xxviii]    IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  293 

property  as  he  had  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the 
Jacobins.  I  forget  whether,  in  the  first  instance, 
he  did  not  come  over  to  England,  or  whether  he 
proceeded  at  once  to  the  United  States.  There  he 
certainly  began  to  work  for  his  living,  and  there  he 
remained  a  few  3^ears.  I  could  not  state  that  he  had 
any  great  reverence  for  an  unbridled  democracy,  or 
for  any  of  the  institutions  of  our  revolted  colonists ; 
but  I  have  often  heard  him  dwell,  and  be  quite 
poetical,  on  the  progress  and  peopling  of  the  United 
States.  "  I  travelled  through  jungle  and  backwood 
for  three  days,  and  met  not  a  human  being,  and  now 
within  that  space  there  are  a  dozen  thriving  American 
towns,  and  at  least  quite  that  number  of  villages. 

**  One  of  the  first  jobs  I  had  was  to  fix  the  disputed 
limits  of  two  contiguous  estates ;  well  !  I  found  there 
w^as  a  difference  in  calculation  which  amounted  to 
about  25,000  acres.  Fancy  such  a  case  occurring 
in  England  or  France  I"  Happily,  before  he  emi- 
grated, he  had  made  himself  a  good  mathematician, 
and  had  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  science  of  land- 
surveying,  together  with  much  experience  in  me- 
chanics. ''  When  I  landed  at  New  York  I  had  barely 
five  pounds  in  my  pocket,  but  the  httle  I  knew  helped 
me  on  to  a  respectable  hvelihood.  Courage  !  the 
man  who  can  do  something,  and  keep  a  warm,  san- 
guine heart  within,  won't  starve  !"  I  had  liked  the 
son,  but  at  our  very  first  meeting  I  could  not  help 
feeling  that  his  father  far  excelled  him  in  originality, 
unworldliness,  genius,  and  taste;  perhaps  also  in 
those  eccentricities  which  cottoned  with  mine.  I 
remember  sympathizing  so  thoroughly  with  the  dear 
old  man  as  to  regret  the  temporary  suspension  of  the 
works  at  the  Thames  Tunnel  as  one  of  the  greatest 
and  most  disgraceful  of  European  mishaps;  for  his 
heart  and  soul  were,  at  this  time,  under  the  Thames, 
and  in  the  excavation  that  was  to  carry  people  and 
goods  from  one  bank  to  the  other,  right  under  the 
lowest  bed  and  mud  of  Pater  Tamesis. 


APPENDIX 

LIST  OF  PUBLISHED  WORKS 

1.  The  Wanderer,  a  Poem  . .  . .  . .  . .    London,  1820 

2.  La  Carbonaria,  la  Democrazia,  e  le  Rivoluzioni  dell'  Anno 

1820 Naples,  1823 

3.  Numerous   Contributions,   written   during  my  residence   in 

Italy,  to  the  Old  London  Magazine,  Reviews,  etc.,  etc., 
chiefly  on  Italian  Literature  and   other   Italian  subjects 

between  1821  and  1827 

4.  Constantinople  in  1828,  with  Journeys  in  the  Turkish  Pro- 

vinces, etc.  I  vol.  4to.  Second  Edition,  2  vols,  post 
8vo.       . .  .  .  , .  . .  .  .  . .    London,  1829 

5.  The  Armenians;  a  Tale  of  Constantinople,  with  Historical 

Sketches,  etc.     3  vols.,  8vo.  .  .  .  .    London,  1830 

6.  Account  of  Italian  Banditti,  etc.     2  vols.  8vo.    London,  1831 

7.  Romance  of  Italian  Histroy.     3  vols.  8vo.    ..    London,  1832 

8.  Visit  to  the  Apocalyptic  Churches,   with  Pencil   Sketches. 

Oblong  4to.     . .  . .  . .  . .  . .    London,  1832 

9.  Contributions  to  History  of  Popular  Tumults  and  their  Evil 

Consequences,  to  Knight's  Gallery  of  Portraits,  Penny 
Magazine,  Penny  Cyclopaedia,  Review,  Companion  to  the 
Newspaper,  Book  of  Table  Talk,  and  other  works  chiefly 
published  by  the  Useful  Knowledge  Society. 

between  1831  and  1837 

10.  Pictorial  History'-  of  England.     8  large  closely-printed  vols. 

in  double  column,  at  least  equal  to  32  vols,  of  the  common 
8vo.  editions  of  Hume  and  Smollett    London,  1 837-1844 

Nearly  eight  years  of  my  life  were  sunk  in  this  work. 
I  wrote  five-sixths  of  the  whole,  or  the  entire  Narrative 
of  Civil  and  Military  Transactions. 

11.  Our  Indian  Empire,  an  Historical  Sketch  of.     2  vols.  8vo. 

London,  1845 

12.  A  History  of  the  French  Revolution,  from  a.d.  1788  to  a.d. 

1804.     4  vols.  8vo.    . .  . .  . .  . .    London,  1846 

'13.  The  Camp  of  Refuge;  or.  The  Last  of  the  Saxons.     2  vols. 
i2mo. 

14.  The  Dutch  in  the  Medway.     i  vol.  i2mo.  1845 

^15.  A  Legend  of  Reading  Abbey,     i  vol.  i2mo. 

These  Historical  Tales  were  published  between  1844  and  1846 

294 


APPENDIX 


295 


16. 

17- 
18. 

19. 
20. 

21. 
22. 

23- 

24. 

25- 

26. 
27. 

28. 


Life  of  Sir  Thomas  Gresham.     i  vol.  i2mo.  . .  1846 

Romance  of  Travel — The  East.     2  vols.  i2mo.      .  .  1846 

Cabinet  History  of  England;  an  Abridgment  of  the  Pictorial 
History.     12  vols,  thick  i2mo.     ..  ..  1845-1847 

A  Glance  at  Revolutionized  Italy;  a  Journey  through  that 
Country  in  1848.     2  vols.  8vo.      .  .  .  .  .  .  1849 

Turkey  and  its  Destiny;  the  Results  of  Travels  in  the  Do- 
minions of  the  Sultan  between  the  month  of  August,  1847, 


29. 
30- 


and  August. 


1848. 


Memoir  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 


I  vol. 


1850 
1851 
1851 
1851 
1852 
1852 
1852 
chiefly  for 
1853 
1853 


2  large  vols,  post  8vo. 

I  vol. .  . 

History  of  British  India,  condensed,      i  vol. 

Two  French  Artists  in  Spain,  a  Translation,     i  vol. 

A  Memoir  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,      i  vol. 

The  Catacombs  of  Rome,     i  vol.  i2mo. 

Japan,  Geographical  and  Historical,     i  vol. 

Great   Battles   of   the   British   Army,   intended 
Soldiers'  Libraries  and  Young  People. 

The  Camp  at  Chobham.     i  vol. 

In  this  year,  1853,  I  contributed  considerably  to  the 
late  Capt.  Nolan's  work  on  Cavalry,  its  Tactics,  etc., 
and  edited  the  volume  for  my  poor  friend. 

Kismet;  or  the  Doom  of  Turkey,     i  vol.     . .  . .  1853 

For  the  Christian   Knowledge   Society,   between  the    years 
1850-1857: 

Historical  and  Descriptive  Sketch  of  Venice.     i2mo. 

Genoa. 

Naples. 
„  ,,  ,,         Florence. 

And  numerous  Contributions  to  the  Home  Friend. 

Besides  all  this,  I  have  written  many  Papers  for  Reviews  and 
other  Periodical  Works. 

{Signed)    CHARLES  MACFARLANE. 


Charterhouse,  August,  1857. 


BILUING    AND   SONS,    LTD.,    PRINTERS,    GUILDFOKD,    ENGLAND 


INDEX 


Abbot,  Colonel,   at  the  battle  of 

Ferozeshah,  247 
Abbotsford,  25 
Abercromby,   General  Sir  Ralph, 

226 
Agrippina,  statue  of,  i 
Alexander  I.,  Emperor  of  Russia, 

death,  185 
Allen,  Mr.,  142 
Alvanley,  Lord,  mot,  no 
Andrews,  200;  story  of  his  death, 

132 
Apennines,  the,  84 
Arabin,  Captain,  223 
Aristides,  statue  of,  3 
Arrochar,  23 
Ashestiel,  25 

Atri,  Duchessa  d'.  215,  216 
Aumale,  Due  d',  218,  220 

Baiae,  84 

Beauharnais,  Josephine,  187 

Beauvais,  282 

Bellingham,  assetssinates  Perceval, 

159 

Benares,  massacre  at,  1 71-174 

Bergamo,  the  courier,  214;  rela- 
tions with  Caroline,  Princess  of 
Wales,  214-216,  227 

Birch,  Colonel,  240 

Bixey,  Mr.,  letter  on  the  death  of 
Lord  Hardingc,  250 

Blackheath,  288 

Blanc,  Louis,  "  Histoire  de  Dix 
Ans,"  218 

Bonaparte,  Caroline.  215 

Bonaparte,  Joseph,  King  of 
Naples,  212,  222,  224 

Boniface,  the  hotel-keeper,  178 

Booth.  Mrs..  115 

Borodino,  battle  of,  186 

Boughton.  287 

Bourbon,  Due  de,  217 


Bourbon  Museum,  Naples,  i,  86 

Bowles.  William  Lisle,  75;  device 
when  riding,  75;  sheep  bells,  76; 
sonnets.  77 

Bowness.  63 

Bowring,  Sir  John,  68;  editor  of 
the  IVestminster  Review,  08; 
soirees.  68;  torrent  of  talk,  69. 
71;  abusive  articles.  70 

Boyd,  Captain,  232 

Brighton,  29,  144,  258 

British  Museum,  26 

Brockedon,  William,  150;"  Passes 
of  the  Alps."  151;  death  of  his 
wife  and  son,  151;  album  of 
portraits,  151 ;  lectures  on  philo- 
sophy, 152;  india-rubber  corks. 
152;  criticism  on,  153;  memoir 
of  J.  Northcote,  154;  death.  154 

Brougham,  Lord,  109 ;  appearance, 
93 ;  opinion  of  Louis  Napoleon, 
167;  of  Caroline.  Princess  of 
Wales,  216 

Brummell,  Beau,  266;  Consul  at 
Caen,  266;  appearance.  267; 
stories  of,  268;  at  Calais,  209; 
characteristics.  269;  relations 
with  George  IV.,  269.  270; 
poverty,  271;  father.  272;  taste 
for  snulf-boxes.  273;  instances 
of  his  assurance,  274-276 

Brummell,  Mr.,  Private  Secretary 
to   Lord    North,    272;    fortune. 

Bruncl,  Isambard.  291 ;  taste  in 
Art,  292  ;  mechanical  inventions. 
292;  portrait,  292;  character. 
292;  in  the  United  States.  293 

Brunei,  Isambard,  journey  from 
Paris  to  Calais,  281-286;  at 
Dover,  286;  drive  to  London, 
287-289 

Brunei,  Mrs.,  ^i 


297 


29S 


INDEX 


Brunei,  Miss,  291 
Buchanan,  Hon.  Mrs.,  203 
Buhver,  Edward  Lytton,  70,  71 
Bulwer,    Henry    Lytton,    dinner- 
party, 70 
Byron,     Lord,     "  The    Vision    of 
Judgment,"  10;  portrait,  67 

Caen,  Consulship  abolished,  266 
Calais,  269;  journey  to,  279-286 
Campbell,  Thomas,   15;  views  on 
the     Polish     question,      15-18; 
habit  of  drinking,  18,  20;  criti- 
cism   of    "  Lalla    Rookh,"    19; 
wig,  19;  "  Pleasures  of  Hope," 
20;  at  Brighton,  29 
Campomele,  Duchessa  di,  206 
Canning,  Rt.  Hon.  George,  "  The 
Rovers ;  or,  The  Double  Arrange- 
ment,"    22    note;     opinion    of 
"  Caleb  Williams,"  100;  of  Lord 
Dudley  and  Ward,  140;  of  the 
"  Downfall  of  Bonaparte,"  186 
Canning,  Sir   Stratford,  poem   on 
the  "  Downfall  of  Bonaparte," 
186 
Canterbury,  288 
Carafa,  Ettore,  209 
Carafa,    Don    N.,    "  Gabriella    di 

Vergi,"  210 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  104 
Carlyle,  Mrs.,  104 
Casti,     Abbate,     "  Animali     Par- 

lanti,"  30 
Championnet,  General,  207 
Charles    IV.,    King   of    Spain,    at 

Naples,  224 
Charles  X.,  King  of  France,  233 
"  Charlotte,  Princess,  Monody  on 

the  death  of,"  119 
Chatham,  288 

Cherry,  Mr.,  assassinated,  172 
Church,  General,  279 
Clarke,  Mary  Anne,  158,  218 
Clery,  Countess,  146 
Clowes,  Mrs.  George,  criticism  of 

W.  Brockedon,  153 
Cocumella,  La,  84 
Coleridge,  Derwent,  53,  66 
Coleridge,  Hartley,  at  Grasmere, 
52;  height,  53;  irregular  meals, 
54 ;  habit  of  drinking,  ^^,  60,  63 ; 
verses,  57,  66;  expulsion  from 
Oxford,  58;  aversion  to  female 
society,  59;  characteristics,  60; 
rooms,  61 ;  habit  of  stopping  and 
stamping,     62;     expedition    to 
Windermere,   63 ;  teaches  in  a 
school,  65;  genius,  66;  criticism 
of  De  Quincey,  81 


Coleridge,    Samuel    Taylor,    criti- 
cism on,   37;  letter  to  Hinves, 
38  note  ;  habit  of  taking  lauda- 
num, 49,  80 ;  torrent  of  talk,  49, 
50;  kindness  to  young  men,  51 
Como,  215 
Constantinople,  162 
"  Constantinople    in     1828,"     30 

note 
Conway,    Captain,    assassinated, 

172 
Corks,  india-rubber,  153 
Corunna,  battle  of,  251 
Cottle,  Amos,  62 
Cottrell,  Charles,  14 
Coutts,  Mrs.,  149.     See  St.  Albans 
Cowslip  Green,  79 
Cradock    or    Caradoc,     Beau,    at 

Brighton,  29.     See  Howden 
Craik,     George     Lillie,      50,     94; 

absent-mindedness,  iii 
Craven,    Hon.    Keppel,   at  Como, 

216 
Creswick,  Thomas,  74 
Croker,  Crofton,  ^i 
Croker,  John  Wilson,  criticism  of 
Miss  Martineau,  95 ;  character  of 
his  speeches,  238 
Crump,  Mrs.,  at  Brighton,  29 

Danvers,  Charles,  279 

Davis,  Scrope,  269 

Davis,  Sir  Francis,  170 

Davis,  Mr.,  Judge  at  Benares,  170; 
influence  over  Elphinstone,  171 ; 
characteristics,  171;  heroism 
during  the  revolt  of  Vizier  Ali, 
1 71-174;  drawings,  174;  adven- 
ture with  a  bear,  174 

Davis,  Joey,  pictures,  jests  and 
verses,  118;  relations  with  T. 
Gent,  1 1 8- 1 20;  fate  of  his 
"  Monody  on  the  death  of 
Princess  Charlotte,"  119 

Davis,  Mrs.,  170 

Dawes,  J.,  218-220 

Dawes,  Nancy,  217.  See  Feu- 
cheres 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  78;  in- 
capacity for  telling  the  truth, 
78 ;  mother,  79 ;  habit  of  taking 
laudanum,  79;  "  Opium  Eater," 
80;  connection  with  Tait's 
Magazine,  81;  criticism  on.  Si; 
slowness  in  writing,  82 ;  memoir 
of  Milton,  82;  poverty,  82; 
family,  83 

Dickens,  Charles,  95 

Dillon,  Lady,  127 

Dillon,  Miss,  126 


INDEX 


299 


Dillon,  Viscount,  126;  eccentri- 
cities, 126;  epigram  on.  126 

D'Orsay,  Count,  opinion  of  Louis 
Napoleon,  187 

Douglas,  Dr.,  22;  friendship  with 
Sir  W.  Scott.  23 ;  treatises.  25 

Douglas,  George,  at  Smyrna,  22; 
meeting  with  Sir  W.  Scott,  26 

Dover,  286 

Dover,  George,  Baron,  49;  illness 
at  Brighton,  144 

Drummond.  Sir  William,  "  Acade- 
mical Questions,"  85 

Dudley  and  Ward,  Lord,  49,  137- 
140,  279 ;  acts  of  generosity,  100 ; 
Foreign  Secretary,  140;  habit  of 
thinking  aloud,  140;  fits  of 
abstraction,  141 ;  dislike  of  Lady 
Holland.  142;  Unes  on.  142; 
articles  for  the  Quarterly  Review. 
143;  hatred  of  affectation,  143 

Dundas,  Sir  David,  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  the  Army,  158 

Ellis,  Sir  Henry,  Chief  Librarian 
of  the  British  Museum,  27,  204 

Elphinstone.  Hon.  Mountstuart, 
90;  at  Constantinople,  162; 
life  in  India,  164;  tribute  to, 
165;  at  Hookwood  Park,  167; 
library,  167;  affection  for  Sir 
W.  Scott,  168 ;  mode  of  hfe,  168 ; 
under  the  care  of  Judge  Davis, 
170 ;  at  the  massacre  of  Benares, 
172-174 

Epping  Forest,  106 

Errol,  Dowager  Countess  of, 
marriage,  134;  deeds  of  charity 
at  Malta,  134 

Erskine,  General,  174 

Esher,  116 

Evans,  Mr.,  assassinated,  172 

Farquhar,  Lady,  60 

Ferdinand,  King  of  Naples,  224; 

flight  to  Sicily.  206,  212 
Ferguson,  Adam,  24 
Ferozeshah,  battle  of,  247,  250 
Feucheres,      Baronne     de,      217; 

career,     217;     nickname,     218; 

nephew,  218-220 
Fitzgerald,  Mr.,  70 
Fleming,     Admiral     Elphinstone, 

279 
Forster,  John,  95 
Francavilla,  Princess  of,  216 
Frere.  Barty.  36 
Frere,  Rt.  Hon.  John  Hookham, 

132;    absent-mindedness,     132; 

result  of  his  embassy  to  Madrid. 


133;       enthusiasm       for       the 
Spaniards,     133;    treatment    of 
Sir  J.  Moore,  133  ;  marriage,  134; 
aL  Malta,  134 
Furbo,  the  French  poodle,  41-43 

Gad's  Hill,  288 

Galashiels,  24 

Gallo,  Duchess  of,  214,  216,  223, 
227 

Gamba,  Conte  Pietro,  199 

Gaur,  ruins  of,  174 

Gell,  Sir  William,  at  Como,  216 

Gent.  Mrs.,  124 

Gent.  Tom,  117;  mode  of  living, 
117;  relations  with  J.  Davis. 
1 18-120;  portrait,  118;  makes 
use  of  "  A  Monody  on  the  death 
of  Princess  Charlotte,"  119: 
"  Monody  to  the  Memory  of  the 
Rt.  Hon.  R.  B.  Sheridan,"  120 
note  ;  a  "  Yarmouth  bloater," 
121;  method  of  writing  his 
"Poems,"  122;  dinners  without 
paying,  123;  wit,  123;  two 
marriages,  124 

George  IV.,  King,  treatment  of 
Beau  Brummell.  269,  270; 
powers  of  mimicry,  270;  at 
Calais,  270 

Gilford.  William,  editor  of  the 
Quarterly  Review,  143 

Gillman,  Mr.,  50 

Gleig,  Mr..  180;  insulted  by 
Macaulay.  181 

Glenelg,  Lord,  166 

Godstone,  167 

Godwin,  WiHiam,  98;  political 
opinions.  98;  "  Caleb  Williams," 
100;    "  Essay    on    Sepulchres," 

lOI 

Gomm,  Sir  William.  240 
Gonfaloniere,  Count,  192,  200 
Gordon,    Dr.,    at   Constantinople, 

162;  death,  163 
Grant,  General,  85 
Grasmere,  52.  81 
Gray,     Thomas,     "  Elegy     in     a 

Country  Churchyard."  85,  86 
Greece,  mission  to,  199 
Green,  Joseph.  50 
Guiccioli,  Contessa,  199 
Gundimore,  33-37 
Guyon,  Captain,  279 

Hallam.  Henry,  139.  M^,  1O3 
Hamilton,  Captain,  "  Cyril  Thorn- 
ton," 59 
Hamilton,  Terrick,  43 
Hamilton,  William,    23 


300 


INDEX 


Harbledown,  287 

Hardinge,  Charles,  248 

Hardinge,  Henry,  Field-Marshal 
Viscount,  on  Sir  R.  Peel's 
susceptibility,  155;  dogs,  156, 
242;  character  of  his  speeches, 
238;  appearance,  239;  life  at 
Penshurst,  241;  horse,  242;  war 
memorials,  243  ;  family  prayers, 
244;  dress,  245;  farm,  245; 
affection  for  Sir  R.  Peel,  246  ; 
anniversary  of  the  battle  of 
Ferozeshah,  247 ;  generosity, 
248,  254;  character,  249-253; 
sympathy  with  suffering,  250; 
at  the  battle  of  Corunna,  251; 
style  of  writing  notes,  253; 
attachment  to  J.  F.  Lyall,  254; 
death,  255,  256 

Hardinge,  Lady,  246 

Hardinge,  Miss,  241,  242 

Harrison,  Mrs.,  180 

Harvey,  T.  K.,  editor  of  the 
AthencBum,  95 

Hastings,  Lady  Flora,  135 

Hastings,  Warren,  entertains 
Impey,  183;  family  prayers,  183; 
characteristics,  184 

Hawes,  Ben,  291 

Haydon,  Benjamin  Robert,  "  The 
Mock  Election,"  154;  commits 
suicide,  155 

Heber,  Bishop,  tribute  to  Mount- 
stuart  Elphinstone,  164-166 

Heber,  Mrs.,  147,  163 

Herbert,  George,  "  Sion,"  67 

Hill,  Matthew  Davenport,  53,  94, 
121 ;  parody  of  T.  Gent' ;  verses, 
122 

Hill,  T.,  at  Brighton,  29 

Hinves,  Dan,  talent  for  cooking,  3 1, 
36;  appearance,  31;  history,  7,7,; 
books,  34;  costume,  34;  travels 
in  Turkey,  36;  autobiography, 
37;  criticisms  on  authors,  37; 
affection  for  his  master,  40 

Hogg,  Sir  James,  240 

Holland,  Lady,  141 

Hood,  Thomas,  at  Brighton,  29; 
appearance,  105;  puns,  105; 
"  Comic  Annual,"  106;  hos- 
pitalities, 106;  farming,  106; 
pension,  107 

Hook,  Theodore,  20 

Hookwood  Park,  Godstone,  167 

Hortense,  Queen,  187 

Howard,  Ned,  202;  size  of  his 
cofiQn,  202;  "  Ratthn  the 
Reefer,"  202,  221;  career,  202; 
two  marriages,  203 


Howden,  Lord,  Ambassador  at 
Madrid,  29;  at  Brighton,  29; 
puns,  105;  appearance,  112. 
See  Cradock 

Hunt,  Leigh,  10;  statements  on 
Lord  Byron,  72 ;  relations  with 
T.  Moore,  72 ;  money  difficulties, 
102 ;  character  of  his  wife,  103 ; 
characteristics,  105 

Hunt,  Mrs.  Leigh,  habit  of  borrow- 
ing money,  103,  104 

Impey,  Sir  Elijah,  calumnies  of 
Macaulay,  180;  "  Memoirs,"  180 
note 

Impey,  Elijah  Barwell,  176;  ac- 
complishments, 176;  ignorance 
of  arithmetic,  176;  delicate 
health,  177;  short  military 
career,  177;  at  Sandgate,  178; 
sohtary  life,  179;  death,  179; 
work  in  clearing  his  father's 
memory,  180;  lines  on,  182; 
friendship  with  Warren  Hast- 
ings, 183 

Irving,  W^ashington,  20,  163 

Ischia,  island  of,  84 

Ischitella,  Don  Francesco  Pinto, 
Prince  of,  89,  185 

Italian  refugees,  190-192,  205 

Jablonovski,  Princess,  146 
Jackson,    Cyril,    Dean    of    Christ 

Church,  176 ;  on  Impey 's  defects, 

177 
Jameson,  Mrs.,   iii;  appearance, 

III;  "Diary  of  an  Ennuyee," 

112;    care   of   her   father,    112; 

in  Canada,  113 
Jameson,  Robert,  112 
Jerdan,    William,    editor    of    the 

Literary  Gazette,  160 
Jerrold,  Douglas,  95 
Jersey.  Countess  of,  238,  239 
Jesse,  Captain,  memoirs  of  Brum- 

mell,  266 

Katinka,  the  cook,  32 

Keats,    John,    13;   character,    13; 

motto   for   his   tombstone,    13; 

at  Naples,  14 
Keith,  Admiral  Lord,  opinion   of 

Sir  S.  Smith,  226 
Kenney,  James,  at  Brighton,  29; 

appearance,     107;    swallows    a 

cork,  107 
Kinnaird,  Lord,  193,  268 
Knight,     Charles,      "  Gallery     of 

Portraits,"  82;  influence  of  Miss 


I 


INDEX 


301 


Martineau,  94 ;  political  views, 
94;     characteristics,      94,      96; 
publishes  T.  Gent's  poems,  121 
Knight,  Margaret,  94 

Lamartine,    A.   de,    meeting  with 

S.  Rogers,  46 
Landor,  Walter  Savage,  102 
Lansdowne,      Marquis     of,      177; 

treatment  of  Impey,  178 
Lasswade,  83 
Lawrence,      Sir      Thomas,      146; 

manners,     146;    maxims,     147; 

acquirements,  147;  poverty,  148 
Leaves,  Mrs.,  164 
Leipzig,  battles  of,  186 
Leroi,  M.,  his  cook,  32 
Lieven,  Count,  70 
Liston,  Lady,  stories  of,  30 
Liston,    Sir    Robert,    Ambassador 

at  Stamboul,  30 
Liverpool,  Earl  of,  273 
Longlands,  Mr.,  180 
Louis  Napoleon,  Emperor,  187 
Louis    Philippe,     King,    relations 

with  ^Ime.  de  Jeuch^res,  218 
Luttrell,  Henry,  wit,  72 
Lyall,  George,  254 
Lyall,  John  Francis,  254 
Lyall,  Mrs.  J.  P.,  170,  175,  254 
Lyall,  Dr.  William  Rowe,  254 
Lyndhurst,  Lady,  100,  143 

Macaulay,      Thomas     Babington, 
Lord,  167;  calumnies  on  Sir  E. 
Impey,  180;  on  Mr.  Gleig,  181; 
timidity,  181 
MacCullock,  Mr.,  196 
Mackinnon,  William,  44,  113 
Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  109;  poli- 
tical views,  109;  characteristics, 
109;  pecuniary  difficulties,  no; 
return  from  India,  159 
Maconochie,  Captain,  152 
Malta,  28,  134 

Mandeville,  Mr.,  at  Brighton,  29 
Martin,  John,  political  views,  98 
Martineau,  Harriet,  93  ;  character- 
istics,    93;    influence    over    C. 
Knight,    94;    "  History   of   the 
Thirty      Years'      Peace,"      95; 
travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  96 
Masquerier,  at  Brighton,  29 
Massena,  Marshal,  in  possession  of 

Naples,  212 
Mathews,  Charles,  107 
Mathias,    James,    84;   "The  Pur- 
suits of  Literature,"  84,  89,  90; 
resemblance  to  Gray,  85 ;  Italian 
poems,    86,    91;   straitened  cir- 


cumstances, 87,  91 ;  exhibition 
of  temper,  87;  at  the  Opera 
House,  88;  bald  head,  89,  92 

Mazzini,  Guiseppe,  201 

Medici,  Cavalier  Don  Luigi.  185 

Mellon,  Harriette,  149.  See  St. 
Albans 

Merveldt,  General,  187 

Micheroux,  Giacomo,  5 

Milligen,  Dr.,  73 

Misenum,  Cape  of,  84 

Montesarchio,  9 

Montpensier,  Due  de,  Master- 
General  of  the  Ordnance,  232; 
at  Woolwich  Arsenal,  232 

Moore,  Sir  John,  at  the  battle  of 
Corunna,  133,  251;  captures  a 
magnum  of  burgundy,  236 

Moore,  Thomas,  67;  "  Lalla 
Rookh,"  19;  life  of  Lord  Byron. 
68,  72  ;  criticism  of  Dr.  Bowring. 
69;  relations  with  Leigh  Hunt, 
72;  veneration  for  rank,  72; 
independent  spirit,  73  ;  hilarity, 
73 ;  cottage  of  Sloperton,  74 

More,  Hannah,  79 

Morgan,  Lady,  200 

Morier,  "  Hadji  Baba,"  164 

Murat,  King  of  Naples,  186,  214 

Murray,  Sir  George,  226;  Master- 
General  of  the  Ordnance,  232; 
member  of  the  Committee  of 
Taste,  234;  anecdote,  236 

Murray,  John,  29,  49,  67,  100,  143, 
164;  dinner-parties,  18,  20,  68; 
on  Sir  T.  Lawrence's  acquire- 
ments, 147 

Murray,  Lord,  168 

Naples,  84;  Royal  Bourbon 
Museum,  i;  the  library,  5,  86; 
revolution  of  1799,  206-212; 
review  at,  224-226 

Naples,  Queen  Caroline  of,  207 

Napoleon,  Emperor,  story  of,  186 

Navarino,  battle  of,  163 

Niemcewitz,  Count,  203 

Northcote,  James,  149,  154;  por- 
trait of  Brunei,  292 

Nyevelt,  Baron  Zuyler  de,  162 

Oldi,  Contessad',  216 

Orlebar,    journey    from    Paris    to 

Calais,  281-286;  at  Dover,  286; 

drive  to  London,  287-289 
Ottley.  the  publisher,  283 

Palmerston,  Viscount,  abolishes 
the  Consulship  at  Caen,  266 

Pecchio,  Count  Guiseppe,  68,  190; 
dishke   of   Austrian    rule,    192; 


302 


INDEX 


"  Life  of  Ugo  Foscolo,"  194; 
style  of  writing,  194;  pronun- 
ciation of  English,  197;  opinion 
of  General  Pepe,  199;  mission 
to  Greece,  199;    in  Dublin,  200 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  155;  suscepti- 
bility, 155  ;  fondness  for  animals, 
155;  Free  Trade  policy,  246; 
death,  246 

Pellico,  Silvio,  192;  "  Francesca 
di  Rimini,"  201 

Penshurst  Castle,  240 

Pepe,  General  Gughelmo,  198 

Perceval,  John  Thomas,  157 

Perceval,  Spencer,  156;  religious 
views,  156;  qualities,  157; 
character  of  his  administration, 
158;  public  and  private  char- 
acter, 15S;  assassinated,  159-161 

Perceval,  Mrs.,  159 

Pisa,  9 

Polish  refugees,  17,  204 

Pompeii,  7 

Ponsonby,  Lady  Emily,  at  Malta, 
134 

Ponsonby,  General  Sir  Frederick, 
Governor  of  Malta,  135 

Porter,  Anna  Maria,  113  ;  sensitive- 
ness, 113;  "The  Hungarian 
Brothers,"  114;  death,  114,  115 

Porter,  Jane,  113;  sensitiveness, 
113;  "The  Scottish  Chiefs," 
114;  death  of  her  sister  and 
brother,  114;  at  Bristol,  114; 
death,  115 

Porter,  Sir  Robert  Ker,  113 

Posihpo,  promontory  of,  84 

Preston,  257;  Church,  wall-paint- 
ing, 263 

Price,  Matthew,  279 

Procida,  island  of,  84 

Quarterly  Review,  articles  in,  143 
Quincey,  Mrs.,  79 
Quincey,  Thomas  De,  78.     See  De 
Quincey 

Radchffe,  Mrs,,  "  Romances,"  loi 

Raikes,  Mr.,  account  of  Beau 
Brummell,  266 

Ralph,  John,  279 

Ramsay,  James,  85 

Riego,  Canon  Del,  198 

Rogers,  Samuel,  hatred  of  dogs, 
41,  46;  relations  with  Sydney 
Smith,  45 ;  meeting  with 
Lamartine.  46;  criticism  on  a 
dinner-party,  48;  "  Pleasures  of 
Memory,"  48;  lines  on  Lord 
Dudley  and  Ward,  142 


Romilly,  Sir  Samuel,  tribute  to 
Spencer  Perceval,  157,  158;  on 
the  joy  of  the  public,  160 

Rosa,  Martinez  de  la,  198 

Rosamoftski,  Prince,  279 

Rosamoffski,  Princess,  146 

Rose,  Sir  George,  180;  lines  on 
Impey,  182 

Rose,  William  Stewart,  criticism 
on  T.  Campbell,  16 ;  at  Brighton, 
29;  translation  of  "  Animali 
Parlanti,"  30;  letters  from  the 
north  of  Italy,  30;  valet,  31- 
S^;  appearance,  32;  "Orlando 
Furioso,"  38;  on  the  Reform 
Bill,  39;  carelessness  in  dress, 
40;  dog  Furbo,  41-43  ;  change  of 
rooms,  43;  taste  in  snuff,  44; 
acute  sense  of  smell,  44;  lines 
from,  51;  friendship  with  Lord 
Dudley  and  Ward,  139;  interest 
in  natural  history,  259;  donkey, 
Velluti,  261 ;  excursions  with 
Rev.  C.  Townsend,  261 ;  lines  on 
him,  264 

Roskilly,  Mr.,  6 

Rossetti,  Gabriele,  143;  at 
Naples,  3 

Rossini,  Gioacchino,  5 ;  love  of 
money,  1S8 

Ruffo,  Cardinal,  206;  leader  of  the 
revolution  of  1799.  206-212 

Ruffo,  Don  G.,  Prince  of  Scilla,  206 

Rumbold,  the  Misses,  222 

Runnington,  Miss,  142 

Rydal  Mount,  52,  58 

St.  Albans,  Duchess  of,  149 

St.  Denis,  280 

St.  Leger,  Barry,  121 

Salter,  General,  148 

Sandgate,  178 

Scamander,  fording  the,  36 

Scilla,  207 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  23;  friendship 
with  Dr.  Douglas,  23;  purchase 
of  Abbotsford,  25 ;  character- 
istics, 26;  financial  difficulties, 
26,  168;  at  the  British  Museum, 
26;  return  from  Malta,  28; 
death, 28 

Severn,  Joseph,  14 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  at  Naples, 
i;  appearance,  i,  S;  "Queen 
Mab,"  6;  trip  to  Pompeii,  6; 
"  Stanzas  written  in  dejection 
near  Naples,"  8;  second  wife,  9; 
characteristics,  10,  12;  religious 
views,  II 

Shepherd,  Sir  Samuel,  142 


INDEX 


303 


Sicily,  213 

Skeffington,  Sir  Lumley  St.  George, 
128;  plays,  129;  appearance, 
129,  131;  nicknames,  129;  wig, 
129,  131;  at  the  theatre,  130; 
"  Bombastes  Furioso,"  131; 
"  Sleeping  Beauty,"  132 

Sloperton  Cottage,  74 

Smith,  Horace,  at  Brighton,  29; 
puns,  105,  107,  108;  appearance, 
108 

Smith,  Sir  Sidney.  221 ;  vanity  and 
loquacity,  221,  226;  step- 
daughters, 222;  at  Naples,  223; 
financial  difficulties,  223,  228- 
230;  character  of  his  conversa- 
tion, 223,  230;  at  a  review,  224- 
226;  diplomatic  errors,  226; 
egotism,  227 ;  invention  of  a  life- 
boat, 228;  in  London,  228-230; 
General  of  Marines,  231 

Smith,  Sydney,  41 ;  relations  with 
S.  Rogers,  45;  friendship  with 
Count  Pecchio,  197 

Smolensk,  battle  of,  186 

Smyrna,  22 

Snuff-boxes,  273 

Soracte,  Mount,  137 

Sotheby,  S.  L.,  113;  compliments 
to  the  Misses  Porter,  114 

Southey,  Edith,  59 

Stackelberg,  Count,  Minister  Pleni- 
potentiary at  Naples,  185 

Staley  Bridge,  64 

Stanley,  Rev.  A.  P.,  127 

Stanley,  Lady,  127 

Stanley  of  Alderley,  Lord,  127 

Starke,  Mariana,  84 

Steel,  Arthur,  291 ;  at  Constanti- 
nople, 162;  death,  163 

Steer,  John,  121 

Stewart,  Lord  Dudley,  204 

Taburno,  Monte,  9 

Tail's  Magazine,  81 

Talleyrand,  Prince,  Ambassador 
to  London,  46 

Tannucci,  Marchese,  207 

Thames  Ditton,  115 

Thames,  tunnel,  285,  293 

Thomson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  treat- 
ment of  Beau  Brummell,  274 

Todd,  Dr.,  38 

Torre  Annunziata,  8 
\    Toulon  Arsenal,  233 

Townsend,  Rev.  Charles,  Curate  of 
Preston,    257;    character,    258; 


sonnets,  259;  interest  in  natural 
history,  259;  expression.  260; 
a  pedestrian,  260;  curacy  in 
London,  262;  presented  to  the 
living  of  Kingston-by-the-Sea, 
263  note  ;  death,  263 ;  archaeo- 
logical discovery,  263  ;  lines  on, 
264 
Turks,  customs,  36 
Turner,  Dawson,  120  note 

Ullswater,  53 
United  States,  293 

Valetta,  135 
Venus,  statue  of,  2 
Vesuvius,  Mount,  9,  84 
Vieusseux,  Andre,  290;  "  History 

of  Switzerland,"  290  note 
Villemain,    M.,    "  Souvenirs   Con- 

temporains,"  187 
Vizier  Ali,  revolt,  171 -174 

W.,  Rev.  H.  E.,  religious  views,  97 
W.,    J.,   resignation  under  trials, 

277-279 
Wales,  Caroline,  Princess  of,  214; 

character,   215;  at  Como,   215; 

relations    with    Bergamo,    216; 

at  Naples,  227 
Ward,  Hon.  H.,  135.     See  Dudley 
Wardle,  Colonel,  158 
Watts,  Alaric.  98 
Wellington,    Duke   of,    advice    to 

Lord  Hardinge,  239 
Westminster  Review,  68 
White,  Gilbert,  "  Natural  History 

of  Selborne,"  259 
Wilberforce,    Wilham,    tribute   to 

S.  Perceval,  159 
Wilham  IV.,  King,  230 
Wilhs,  N.  P.,  "  PenciUings  by  the 

Way,"  91  note 
Wilson,  John,  55,  64,  77;  on  De 

Quincey 's  habit  of  taking  opium, 

80,  83 
Winchmore  Hill,  106 
Windermere,  62 
WoUstonecraft,  Mary.  9 
Woolwich  Arsenal.  232 
Wordsworth,  Dora,  58 
Wordsworth.  Wilham,    58;   afiec- 

tion  for  H.  Coleridge,  58.  60 
Wordsworth,  Mrs.,  58 
Wrington,  79 

York,  Duke  of,  in  command  of  the 
Horse  Guards,  158 


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